UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 
EGYPTIAN  DEPARTMENT  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  MUSEUM 


ECKLEY  B.  COXE  JUNIOR  EXPEDITION  TO  NUBIA 

VOL.  V 

KARANOG 

THE  TOWN 

4 


BY 

C.  LEONARD  WOOLLEY 


V.5  I 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY  MUSEUM 
PHILADELPHIA 

MCMXI 


.  N  8P4 


Scctfoo 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/karanogtownOOwool 


UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 
EGYPTIAN  DEPARTMENT  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  MUSEU 

ECKLEY  B.  COXE  JUNIOR  EXPEDITION  TO  NUBIA 

VOL.  V 

KARANOG 

THE  TOWN 


C.  LEONARD  WOOLLEY 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY  MUSEUM 
PHILADELPHIA 

MCMXI 


Letter    Press    and    Printing  by 
The  John  C.  Wikston  Co. 
Philadelphia,  Pa.,   U.  S.  A. 


Ck)llotype  Plates  by 

E.   O.  COCKAYVE 

Boston,  Mass. 


(iv) 


In  the  Same  Series 


Vol.  I  AREIKA 

BY  D.  Randall-MacIver  and  C.  Leonard  Woolley 

Price  $5. 

Vol.  II  CHURCHES  IN  LOWER  NUBIA 

BY  G.  S.  MlLEHAM 

Edited  by  D.  Randall-MacIver 

Price  $5. 

Vols.  Ill  and  IV  KARANOG 

The  Romano-Nubian  Cemetery 
BY  C.  Leonard  Woolley  and  D.  Randall-MacIver 

Price  $20. 

Vol.  VI  (in  press)  KARANOG 

The  Meroitic  Inscriptions,  together  with  those  from  Shablul 
BY  F.  Ll.  Griffith 


Vols.  VII  and  VIII  (in  press)  BUHEN 

BY  D.  Randall-MacIver  and  C.  Leonard  Woolley 
with  translations  of  the  inscriptions  by  A.  M.  Blackman 


To  be  obtained  at  the  University  Museum, 
Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania,  U.  S.  A. 

Agent  for  Europe :  Henry  Frowde, 
Amen  Comer,  Paternoster  Row,  London. 

(V) 


PREFACE 


This  volume  is  the  fifth  of  a  series  which  will  record  the  results  of  explorations  in  Egypt, 
planned  and  financed  by  Mr.  Eckley  B.  Coxe,  Jr.,  of  Philadelphia.  By  an  agreement  made  with 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  in  January,  1907,  the  expeditions  are  to  be  conducted  on  behalf 
of  the  University,  and  the  antiquities  obtained  will  be  presented  to  the  University  Museum. 

Dr.  D.  Randall-Mad ver  and  the  present  writer,  as  curator  and  assistant  curator  of  the 
Egyptian  department  of  the  museum,  have  been  charged  with  the  duty  of  conducting  the  excava- 
tions and  publishing  the  results.  This  volume,  describing  the  Blemyan  town  of  Karanog,  stands 
in  close  relation  to  the  two  preceding  volumes  that  dealt  with  the  cemetery  attached  to  the 
town,  and  to  volume  vi  in  which  the  epigraphical  material  is  published  by  Mr.  F.  LI.  Griffith 
of  Oxford.  The  four  volumes  bearing  the  common  name  of  Karanog  will  form  a  complete  record 
of  the  results  obtained  by  the  expedition  from  the  first  Blemyan  site  to  be  excavated,  and  will 
serve  as  a  basis  for  the  material  history  of  that  people. 

The  writer  wishes  to  record  his  thanks  to  Dr.  D.  Randall-Maclver  for  assistance  both  on 
the  spot  and  in  the  revising  of  MSS.;  and  his  gratitude  to  Mr.  Eckley  B.  Coxe  for  his  personal 
interest  in  the  work  as  well  as  for  the  generosity  that  originated  it. 

C.  L.  W. 


(vii) 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface       .        .............  vii 

CHAPTER  I 

General  Introduction        .         ..........  i 

CHAPTER  II 

Constructional  Features     ...........  io 

CHAPTER  III 

The  Castle  Ruins  ......  ....  15 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  House  Ruins         ............  26 

CHAPTER  V 

The  Pottery         .............  41 

CHAPTER  VI 

A.  Decorative  Stone  Work  .....  ....  46 

B.  Ostraka   ..............  48 

CHAPTER  VII 

Catalogue  of  Blemyan  Objects,  Chiefly  from  Karanog  Now  in  the  University 

Museum         .............  49 

Index  ...............  51 

(ix) 


f 


LIST  OF  PLATES 


Plate  I . 

Plate  2. 

Plate  3. 

Plate  4. 

Plate  5. 

Plate  6. 

Plate  7. 

Plate  8. 
Plate  9. 

Plate  10. 
Plate  II. 

Plate  12. 

Plate  13. 
Plate  14. 
Plate  15. 
Plate  16. 
Plate  17. 


a.  View  from  Karanog  Castle  Looking  towards  Tomas. 

b.  View  from  Karanog  Castle  Looking  towards  Kasr  Ibrim. 

a.  View  from  Kasr  Ibrim  Looking  towards  Karanog. 

b.  Karanog  Castle  from  the  Northwest. 

a.  The  Castle:  Restored  Elevation  of  West  Face. 

b.  The  Castle:  West  Face. 

a.  The  Castle:  The  Northeast  Corner. 

b.  The  Castle:  The  East  Face,  Showing  the  Repaired  Gateway. 

a.  The  Castle:  The  Repaired  Gateway  Seen  from  Inside. 

b.  The  Castle:  The  Great  Staircase. 

a.  The  Castle:  The  East  End  of  Room  5. 

b.  The  Castle:  The  Partly  Blocked  Doorway  between  Rooms  9  and  10. 

a.  The  Castle:  Room  12  a,  Showing  the  Method  of  Floor-laying  above  the  Barrel 

Vault. 

b.  The  Castle:  Niche  and  Doorway  in  Room  14. 

a.  The  Castle:  Whitewashed  Floor  in  Room  20. 

b.  The  Castle:  The  Light-well  Seen  from  Room  6. 


a.  House  5 

b.  House  5 

c.  House  2 


Room  9  a. 

Rooms  12  and  13,  Looking  towards  11. 
Seen  from  the  Castle. 


a.  House  8:  General  View  Looking  West. 

b.  House  8:  Room  13. 

a.  House  9,  Looking  West. 

b.  Kasr  Ibrim,  from  the  South,  Showing  the  Podium  of  a  Temple  (?)  Incorporated 

in  the  Wall. 

a.  Kasr  Ibrim;  the  Gateway. 

b.  Kasr  Ibrim;  the  Temple. 

Terra  Cotta  Figurines,  Pottery  Chest,  Lamps,  etc. 
Index  of  New  Pottery  Types. 

Stone  Tallies,  Jar  Sealings,  Lacquered  Wood,  Iron  Instruments. 

Fragments  of  Stone  Tracery  Windows  from  Haifa. 

Stone  Fragments  from  Haifa,  Karanog  and  Faras. 

(xi) 


LIST  OF  PLATES 


xui 


Plates  1 8,  19,  20.    Meroitic  Ostraka  from  Karanog. 

Plate  21.    Karan5g  Castle,  Ground  Plan. 

Plate  22.    The  Castle:  Plan  of  First  Floor. 

Plate  23.    a.  The  Castle:  Section  North  by  South, 
b.  The  Castle:  Section  East  by  West. 

Plate  24.    House  i  :  Ground  Plan. 

Plate  25.    House  2:  Ground  Plan. 

Plate  26.    a.  House  3:  Ground  Plan. 

b.  House  5:  Ground  Plan. 

Plate  27.    Houses  4  and  6:  Ground  Plan. 

Plate  28.    a.  House  7:  Ground  Plan. 

b.  House  9:  Ground  Plan. 

Plate  29.    House  8:  Ground  Plan. 

Plate  30.    Plan  of  the  Town  Site  of  Karanbg. 


CHAPTER  I 

GENERAL  INTRODUCTION 

In  volumes  iii  and  iv  of  this  series  are  described  the  results  obtained  from  the  excavation  of  a 
large  cemetery  lying  a  little  north  of  the  modern  village  of  Anibeh  in  lower  Nubia,  and  reasons 
are  given  for  supposing  this  cemetery  to  have  belonged  to  the  little  known  Blemyan  people  who 
between  the  first  and  sixth  centuries  of  the  Christian  era  inhabited  this  region.  It  was  tolerably 
clear  that  of  the  Blemyan  towns  in  the  neighbourhood,  that  which  the  modern  natives  know  as 
Karanog  stood  in  closest  relation  to  the  graves,  and  the  name  was  therefore  applied  to  those 
volumes  of  the  series  that  deal  with  this  Romano-Nubian  civilization.  The  contents  of  the  graves 
alone,  rich  and  varied  as  they  were,  did  not  illustrate  fully  enough  the  Blemyan  culture  as  a 
whole,  and  to  complete  even  a  preliminary  study  of  the  people  it  was  necessary  to  do  some  work 
upon  a  town  site  belonging  to  them;  Karanog,  in  view  of  its  connection  with  the  cemetery,  was 
clearly  indicated  as  the  proper  site  for  such  work,  and  therefore  in  the  winter  of  1909-1910,  while 
the  main  forces  of  the  expedition  were  engaged  at  Haifa,  the  writer  was  employed  at  Karan5g  in 
such  digging  as  was  necessary  for  the  results  that  might  be  expected.  It  was  not  to  be  hoped  that 
the  town  site  would  prove  at  all  rich  in  museum  specimens,  of  which  the  graves  had  already 
yielded  an  abundance;  its  object  was  rather  the  study  of  house  plans  and  constructional  features, 
the  collection  of  chronological  data,  which  were  conspicuously  absent  from  the  tombs,  and  the 
finding  of  further  material  for  the  elucidation  of  the  language. 

Karan5g,  the  House  of  Kara,  stands  on  a  low  tongue  of  rock  that  runs  down  towards  the  river,  The  Country 
a  little  distance  south  of  the  village  of  Tomas.  At  the  north  end  of  Tomas  village,  on  a  similar  ^^^^nbg 
but  loftier  and  more  precipitous  spur,  stand  the  ruins  of  Sheikh  Daoud,  which  modern  geographers 
have  identified,  perhaps  rightly,  with  the  fortress  of  Begrash  whose  name  appears  both  in  the 
writings  of  the  mediaeval  Arab  historians  and  on  inscribed  offering-tables  from  the  Blemyan 
cemetery  at  Karanog.  Between  the  two  fortresses,  in  front  of  the  modern  village,  stretches  one 
of  the  most  fertile  reaches  of  lower  Nubia,  whose  broad  belt  of  feathery  palms  has  inclined  us  to 
identify  Sheikh  Daoud  with  the  Phoinikon  of  Olympiodorus.  Facing  this  rich  demilune  lies 
an  equally  fertile  island,  Geziret  Tomas;  but  it  is  more  than  possible  that  in  the  Romano-Nubian 
period  the  island  formed  part  of  the  western  bank,  which  with  this  addition  would  certainly  have 
been  the  largest  cultivated  area  in  the  region.  Some  years  ago  the  channel  on  the  west  of  the 
island  was  alone  navigable  in  the  summer  season;  now  it  is  being  silted  up  and  in  summer  is 
practically  dry,  while  the  altered  current  is  carrying  away  more  and  more  of  the  eastern  part  of 
the  island  and  deepening  at  the  same  time  the  eastern  channel,  so  that  in  a  few  years'  time  the 
district  may  have  recovered  the  aspect  which  it  presented  fifteen  hundred  years  ago.  Similarly 
the  bank  on  which  stood  the  town  of  Karanog  has  been  to  no  small  extent  eroded  by  the  stream, 
and  here  too  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  now  shallow  channel  on  the  east  side  of  the  island  of 
Geziret  Ibrim,  whose  northern  end  lies  just  over  against  the  castle  of  Karanog,  was  once  the  true 
river  bed  and  that  the  island  was  attached  to  the  western  bank.  Even  as  things  are  to-day,  the 
strategic  value  of  the  three  Blemyan  strongholds.  Sheikh  Daoud,  Karanog,  and  Kasr  Ibrim,  is 
very  obvious;  it  would  be  vastly  enhanced  did  the  two  islands  form  part  of  the  west  bank.  In 
that  case  the  cultivated  area  that  now  corresponds  to  Tomas,  but  so  greatly  widened,  would 
have  been  held  at  either  extremity  of  its  arc  by  the  fortresses  of  Sheikh  Daoud  and  Karandg; 
southwards  from  the  latter  would  have  stretched  a  broad  band  of  fertile  country,  now  represented 


2 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


The  Country  hy  the  island  and  the  western  channel  of  the  Nile,  which  would  have  joined  on  to  the  rich  and 
Karandg.  broad  oasis  stretching  out  around  and  behind  Anibeh.  Where  this  dwindle^  away  to  desert  on  the 
south  the  great  spur  whereon  Kasr  Ibrim  was  built  juts  out  upon  the  narrowed  river  and  commands 
at  once  Anibeh  and  the  belt  of  palms  that  fringes  the  eastern  shore ;  the  chain  of  forts  is  carefully- 
chosen  to  safeguard  the  whole  fourteen  mile  tract  of  the  most  valuable  land  in  Nubia.  On  PI.  i 
are  shown  the  views  obtained  by  one  who  stands  by  the  castle  of  Karanog  and  looks  first  down 
and  then  up  the  river.  In  the  first  photograph  the  palm  grove  hides  the  ruins  of  Sheikh  Daoud 
in  the  distance,  but  its  position  can  be  guessed  at  the  far  end  of  the  fertile  stretch  that  contrasts 
so  strongly  with  the  barren  aspect  of  the  east  bank;  thus  seen,  the  island  of  Tomas  sinks  into  the 
main  land,  the  western  channel  disappears  from  sight,  and  the  view  is  much  what  we  may  suppose 
it  to  have  been  in  Roman  times.  In  the  second  view  the  rich  island  of  Geziret  Ibrim  lies  on  the 
left;  in  the  distance  the  Nile  broadens  out  to  enclose  the  wide  sand  banks  of  Abu  Ras,  doubtless 
at  one  time  part  of  the  island  of  Ibrim  from  which  its  northern  end,  sparsely  overgrown  with 
thorn  scrub  and  brightened  by  a  few  patches  of  corn,  is  onlv  divided  by  a  narrow  channel.  Seen 
thus  from  Karanog,  this  reach  of  the  river  looks  like  a  great  oval  lake  with  the  island  in  its  midst ; 
on  the  horizon  can  be  seen  three  precipitous  spurs  that  rise  sheer  from  the  water,  and  on  the  central 
spur  stands  Kasr  Ibrim.  On  PI.  2,  Fig.  a,  can  be  seen  the  view  from  Kasr  Ibrim,  looking  north 
and  west.  Karanog  from  here  is  but  a  spot  hardly  to  be  distinguished  in  the  distance,  though 
at  one  time  its  huddled  group  of  high  whitewashed  houses  must  have  been  visible  enough;  on 
the  western  bank  are  the  cornfields  and  groves  of  Anibeh  and  behind  these  the  once  fertile  but 
now  neglected  plain  stretches  bare  to  the  few  palms  and  (iMrm-patches  that  form  a  tiny  oasis 
on  the  skirts  of  the  true  desert.  To-day  it  may  seem  a  somewhat  barren  country  to  have  been 
so  elaborately  defended,  but  in  the  old  conditions  of  wider  fields  better  tilled  it  must  have  been  a 
veritable  Land  of  Promise  for  the  wandering  tribe  that  came  from  the  deserts  of  the  southeast  to 
find  its  inheritance  upon  the  Nile. 
Different  The  work  carried  out  last  winter  at  the  town  of  Karanog  did  not  in  any  degree  exhaust  the 

fheTown^s  site.  The  castle,  the  most  prominent  building,  indeed  the  only  one  that  still  stood  above  the 
History.  drifted  sand,  was  cleared  and  examined,  and  a  small  number  of  houses  were  excavated.  In  order 
to  obtain  from  this  limited  amount  of  work  a  fair  idea  of  the  whole  site,  the  houses  chosen  were 
the  only  one  that  lay  between  the  castle  and  the  river,  forming  the  northern  limit  of  the  town, 
the  isolated  row  biiilt  upon  the  higher  rock  plateau  that  bounds  the  town  upon  the  west,  a  small 
group  at  the  southwest  corner,  and  three  connected  houses  in  the  heart  of  the  town  not  far  from 
the  river  bank.  A  comparison  of  the  results  from  all  these  brings  out  clearly  certain  points. 
There  were  two  main  periods  of  building,  characterized  by  very  distinct  styles  of  architecture. 
In  the  earlier  the  brickwork  was  good  and  solid,  the  smooth  whitewashed  walls  supported  barrel 
vaults  above  which  rose  a  second  and  sometimes  a  third  storey  reached  by  winding  brick  stairs. 
The  rooms  were  built  round  or  upon  open  court  yards;  the  ground  plans  were  regular,  the  main 
lines  of  the  building  truly  laid  down,  and  the  details  of  good  construction,  bonding,  etc.,  carefully 
observed.  In  the  later  period  fiat  roofs  of  mud  laid  over  rafters  and  palm-leaf  mats  took  the  place 
of  the  old  vaults,  the  plans  were  straggling  and  incoherent,  the  walls  flimsy  and  ill  built.  The 
houses  of  the  early  period  were  uniform  and  probably  contemporary,  but  the  periods  of  repair 
and  of  rebuilding  were  naturally  different  upon  different  sites  and  could  not  be  synchronised, 
and  here  too  additions  and  alterations  made  at  dififerent  dates  confused  the  evidence  for  the  later 
stages  even  of  a  single  house.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  to  what  event  in  the  history  of  the  town 
such  a  phase  of  destruction  and  rebuilding  could  be  due;  there  is  nothing  in  literary  history 
or  in  the  evidence  given  by  the  site  itself  to  define  any  catastrophe  that  would  result  in  wholesale 
reconstruction  in  a  late  period.  Probably  there  was  no  such  catastrophe:  the  older  buildings 
put  up  by  the  first  settlers  fell  into  disrepair,  were  first  patched  and  then  neglected,  and  a 
later  and  less  skilful  generation  put  up  from  time  to  time  their  ruder  dwellings  over  the  ruins 


GENER.\L  INTRODUCTION 


3 


of  a  style  which  they  could  not  emulate ;  only  a  few  of  the  first  houses  either  stood  throughout  Different 
the  whole  period  of  the  town's  occupation  or,  if  they  fell  into  decay,  were  not  supplanted  by  t'^g^Xown^s 
others,  and  therefore  still  occupy  the  higher  levels  of  the  site  unconfused  by  subsequent  building.  History. 
It  can  however  safely  be  affirmed  that  almost  all  the  houses,  even  the  latest,  fell  within  the 
Blemyan  period;  Meroitic  ostraka  and  painted  Blemyan  pottery  attest  this,  and  though  in 
two  cases  in  the  houses  (K  H  8  and  9)  Christian  remains  were  found,  and  in  the  castle  ruins  a 
Coptic  MSS.  was  discovered,  yet  these  prove  no  more  than  a  partial  occupation  by  scattered  poor 
families  who  squatted  in  the  ruins  of  the  deserted  town  and  tried  to  make  habitable  a  few  of  its 
less  dilapidated  chambers ;  as  evidence  they  cannot  be  relied  upon  much  more  than  can  a  fragment 
of  an  English  newspaper  and  a  United  States  postage  stamp,  which  were  found  at  about  the 
same- level  as  the  Coptic  MSS.,  and  under  a  considerably  deeper  deposit!  Generally  speaking, 
we  have  at  Karanog  the  signs  of  a  civilization  which  starting  at  a  high  level  of  technical  achieve- 
ment in  the  days  when  the  influence  of  the  Meroitic  tradition  was  most  strong,  gradually  in 
its  growing  isolation  degenerated,  until  impoverished  in  its  material  resources  and  losing  grip 
of  all  its  inspirations  except  that  of  the  religion  to  which  it  tenaciously  clung,  it  sank  almost 
to  the  level  of  the  modem  Nubian.  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  minor  arts  such  as  pottery-making 
still  flourished  with  something  of  their  old  vigour,  preserving  with  characteristic  conservatism 
many  of  their  old  motives  and  modifying  but  slightly  their  old  technique;  it  is  true  that  the 
Meroitic  script  was  still  employed  side  by  side  with  the  official  Greek,  and  that  the  court  of  the 
Blemyan  kings  imitated  the  forms  and  etiquette  of  the  Byzantine  Caesars;  but  the  general 
condition  of  the  people  had  degenerated,  and  when  Silko  and  Justinian  finally  destroyed  the 
Blemyes  about  543  a.  d.  they  must  have  been  in  fact  if  not  in  seeming  a  people  far  inferior 
to  those  with  whom  Maximinus  had  made  pact  about  a  century  before. 

One  feature  in  the  building  seems  to  stand  in  relation  to  the  history  which  we  learn  from  Evidence 

other  sources.   On  PH.  2,  t.  and  4  can  be  seen  the  lofty  ruins  of  the  castle,  so-called  because  of /f-^*^".  ^ 

...  .  Campaigns. 

its  commanding  position  on  the  high  rocks  in  the  northwest  corner  of  the  town  and  of  the 

greater  area  covered  by  the  solid  walls  of  its  imposing  pile.*    The  photographs  show  how 

everywhere  its  walls  are  breached  by  great  gashes  in  the  brickwork  reaching  from  the  windows 

of  the  second  storey  down  to  its  stone  foundations  and  wide  enough  for  a  man  to  pass  through ; 

similarly  inside  the  castle  the  party  walls  between  the  rooms  are  pierced,  the  doorways  battered 

out  and  the  whole  building  deliberately  ruined  so  that  one  can  wander  through  it  at  random. 

The  front  view  (PI.  4,  Fig.  a;  PI.  5,  Fig.  b)  shows  the  entrance  on  the  eastern  face,  and  here  a 

difference  at  once  strikes  the  eye.    The  gateway  has  been  broken  down  for  a  width  of  some 

thirteen  feet,  and  even  the  heavy  stones  of  the  foundation  courses  have  been  dislodged;  but 

here,  and  here  alone,  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  repair  the  breach.    To  the  broken  edge  of 

the  wall  has  been  built  on  as  best  might  be  a  block  of  rough  brickwork;  the  bricks  are  ill-laid, 

some  of  them  were  but  broken  fragments;   rough  stones  from  the  desert  are  mixed  with  the 

bricks,  and  in  one  place  a  line  of  headers  is  laid  slantwise  on  edge  in  a  fashion  which,  as  the 

house-sites  show,  was  characteristic  of  the  latest  Blemyan  period.    The  piece  of  patchwork 

starts  at  foundation  level  with  the  same  width  as  that  of  the  older  wall,  but  this  diminishes  as 

the  wall  rises,  until  at  the  highest  point  at  which  it  stands  it  has  lost  a  third  of  its  proper  thickness : 

it  shows  therefore  every  sign  of  hasty,  makeshift  work.    This  new  wall  has  itself  been  breached 

after  its  completion.    Now  in  the  inscription  in  the  Kalabsheh  temple,  where  Silko  recounts  his 

conquest  of  the  Blemyes,  he  seems  to  speak  of  two  campaigns;   after  the  first  of  these  the 

Blemyes  submitted  and  he  made  a  truce  with  them  and  retired  to  his  own  country,  trusting 

to  their  abiding  loyally  by  his  terms;  then  they  sought  a  quarrel  against  him,  and  in  a  second 


♦House  KH  2  actually  occupied  a  larger  area,  but  a  good  deal  of  this  seems  to  have  been  taken  up  with 
buildings  of  one  storey  only  (see  p.  28). 


4  KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 

Evidence  campaign  he  utterly  wiped  out  the  rebellious  people.  The  story  is  confused  enough,  but  it  is 
"campaigns  P^^^^P^  'to  be  reconstructed  as  follows :  Silko  immediately  after  his  conversion  by  the  emissaries 
of  Justinian  attacked  the  Blemyes  as  a  proof  of  his  enthusiasm  for  the  new  faith  and  the  new 
alliance;  he  was  victorious,  received  the  submission  of  Karanbg  and  the  other  towns,  and  in 
token  of  his  victory  "brake  down  the  gate  thereof"  in  the  true  fashion  of  an  eastern  conqueror. 
Then  Justinian  ordered  the  destruction  of  the  Isis  temple  on  the  island  of  Philae ;  it  was  the 
common  property  of  the  Romans,  the  Nobades  and  the  Blemyes;  two  of  these  peoples  were 
now  Christian,  the  third  was  cowed,  and  the  moment  seemed  opportune  for  the  destruction  of 
the  last  pagan  shrine  ofhcially  maintained  within  the  Roman  Empire.  But  this  was  too  much 
for  the  Blemyes,  conquered  though  they  were;  they  hastily  repaired  the  breach  in  their  battered 
walls  and  rebelled  against  their  conqueror.  Silko,  aided  by  the  Byzantine  forces  under  Narses, 
Justinian's  envoy,  attacked  them  again  victoriously,  and  this  time  left  no  doubt  as  to  his 
victory ;  not  only  the  gate  but  every  door  and  every  wall  was  breached  and  the  town  and  castle 
destroyed  beyond  the  possibility  of  defence:  its  inhabitants  were  scattered  or  enslaved,  and 
the  city  of  Karanog  was  deserted.  No  attempt  was  ever  made  to  repair  any  of  the  breaches  in 
the  castle  walls  made  after  this  second  campaign  of  Silko,  and  if  a  few  Christian  Nubians  at 
one  time  or  another  squatted  in  the  less  ruined  rooms,  blocking  up  a  doorway  here  or  there 
with  a  flimsy  screen  of  plastered  mud,  they  never  essayed  anything  that  could  be  called  rebuilding 
or  even  repair;  the  traces  of  their  ephemeral  encampment  only  enhance  the  actual  desolation 
of  the  site. 

Results  The  castle  had  not  passed  through  any  of  the  stages  of  alteration  or  reconstruction  during 

^House^Sites  Blemyan  period  that  were  so  evident  upon  the  lower  hou:e  sites.  Here,  apart  from  the 
constructional  features  peculiar  to  the  earlier  and  later  years  of  the  occupation,  differences  and 
developments  could  be  ascertained  in  the  case  of  pottery  also.  In  spite  of  the  great  quantity 
of  pottery  vessels  found  in  the  graves  near  Anibeh,  no  criteria  had  been  there  forthcoming  whereby 
any  technical  progress  or  any  relative  chronology  could  be  defined;  in  the  case  of  the  houses, 
where  unbroken  floor-levels  gave  to  stratification  an  importance  which  it  does  not  always  possess, 
a  certain  amount  of  material  was  found  to  illustrate,  at  least  in  some  wares,  the  gradual  transition 
from  the  earlier  Blemyan  shapes  and  motives  to  those  of  Coptic  art.  New  types  of  all  periods 
served  to  show  the  distinction,  always  more  or  less  observed,  between  the  household  wares  and 
those  deemed  proper  to  funerary  uses;  rough  handmade  store-jars,  which  were  never  found  in 
the  graves,  appear  commonly  in  the  house  ruins;  handmade  pots  of  all  sizes  were  in  constant 
use  for  cooking  or  for  other  domestic  purposes,  but  occur  rarely  in  the  tombs,  and  then  only  in 
those  of  the  poorer  class ;  and  in  the  town  the  proportion  of  undecorated  as  opposed  to  decorated 
vessels  is,  as  we  should  expect,  greatly  in  excess  of  what  was  observed  in  the  cemetery. 

Apart  from  pottery  few  objects  of  interest  were  found  on  the  town  site.  There  were  a 
number  of  Meroitic  ostraka  (PH.  i8,  19,  20),  more  or  less  fragmentary,  the  main  interest  of 
which  lies  in  the  frequent  occurrence  on  them  of  numerals,  and  in  the  presence  of  a  place-name, 
Pezeme,  which  is  found  also  in  inscriptions  at  Amara  and  elsewhere.*  A  Greek  ostrakon  seems 
to  be  dated  to  the  twelfth  year  of  Alexander  Severus  (233  a.  d.). 

Just  below  the  surface  of  the  sand  overlying  house  7  was  picked  up  a  coin  of  Nero  struck 
at  Alexandria  in  the  twelfth  year  of  his  reign  (65  A.  d.).  This  was  the  only  coin  found,  and  it 
has  the  dramatic  interest  of  recalling  the  mission  of  the  spies  whom  Nero,  when  contemplating 
an  Aethiopian  campaign  which  his  death  prevented  him  from  carrying  out,  sent  down  through 
this  country  and  as  far  south  as  the  Sudd  district  on  the  Blue  Nile. 

Of  later  remains  the  most  interesting  were  two  fragments  of  Coptic  MSS.  One  is  on  papyrus 
and  is  the  first  Coptic  version  of  a  legend  already  known  from  Arabic  and  Aethiopic  sources. 


♦For  the  hand  copies  of  the  inscriptions  and  for  notes  thereon  I  am  indebted  as  usual  to  Mr.  F.  LI.  Griffith. 


GENERAL  INTRODUCTION 


5 


The  story  deals  with  a  saint,  Sisinnius,  whose  sister,  named  Berzelia,  was  seduced  by  Satan;  Results 
she  became  a  vampire  and  used  to  suck  the  blood  of  small  children.  In  the  end  she  was  put  to  'fi'ouse' Sites 
death  by  her  brother  the  saint.*  The  other  MSS.  is  written  on  gazelle-skin  leather  and  seems 
to  be  a  deed  of  sale  or  a  marriage  contract  between  one  Georgios  and  his  wife  Christe. 
In  house  8,  in  the  open  yard  (14  on  the  plan,  PI.  29)  were  found  the  fragments  of  a  rudely 
painted  earthenware  chest  decorated  with  the  Christian  cross  (PI.  13),  and  in  house  9  were  parts 
of  a  similar  chest  having  upon  its  sides  a  rough  design  of  fishes,  probably  also  Christian;  a  small 
painted  Coptic  saucer  (PI.  13)  found  in  the  same  house  9  points  to  its  having  been  one  of  those 
utilized  by  the  straggling  settlers  of  the  post-Blemyan  age,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  actual 
construction  of  the  house,  which  differs  a  good  deal  from  the  others  in  the  site,  is  in  part  at  least 
of  Coptic  work. 

One  perplexing  point  about  the  town  is  the  apparent  absence  of  any  temple,  that  is,  of  any  The  Absence 
stone  construction  such  as  one  would  look  for  upon  an  important  Blemyan  site.  The  stone  Xentple 
foundations  of  the  castle  and  of  house  2,  the  fragments  of  stone  trellice  windows  (see  ch.  vi), 
and  the  common  use  of  cut  stone  in  the  superstructures  of  the  tombs,  would  lead  one  to  expect 
some  such  building  as  the  temple  of  Kasr  Ibrim  (PI.  12,  Fig.  a).  At  Haifa,  where  the  Meroitic 
settlement  was  of  the  poorest  type,  there  seems  to  have  been  a  small  temple  which  though 
rough  enough  in  its  construction  was  at  least  in  part  stone  built  and  superior  in  style  to  the 
houses  that  lay  around  it  (vol.  vii,  chap.  viii).  On  the  Meroitic  site  of  Gebel  Adda  the  great 
eastern  wall  is  of  massive  stone  dressed  in  the  manner  familiar  to  us  in  Blemyan  examples:  at 
Faras  there  are  similar  stone  buildings,  though  no  temple  of  the  period  can  as  yet  be  traced ;  at  Kasr 
Ibrim,  besides  the  temple,  parts  of  the  walls  and  some  stones  incorporated  in  the  Coptic  church 
show  typical  Blemyan  dressing  (see  PH.  11,  12).  We  do  not  yet  know  enough  to  distinguish 
between  Meroitic  and  Blemyan  stonework, f  though  the  difference  between  Blemyan  and  Coptic 
is  fairly  clear,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  some  or  all  of  the  stone  buildings  of  these  more  southern 
sites  are  of  a  date  previous  to  the  invasion  of  Petronius  in  23  b.  c;  but  at  Sheikh  Daoud  the 
gateway  is  of  similarly  treated  stone,  and  as  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  earliest  buildings  there 
are  of  the  Blemyan  timej,  this,  if  it  does  not  give  a  later  date  to  the  southern  sites,  at  least 
warrants  us  in  expecting  buildings  of  that  type  in  a  Blemyan  town.  The  excavations  at  Karanog 
failed  to  discover  anything  of  the  sort,  and  though  of  course  they  covered  but  a  small  part  of 
the  town  area  and  cannot  therefore  in  themselves  be  regarded  as  at  all  conclusive,  yet  taken 
together  with  the  entire  absence  of  any  surface  indications  of  a  stone  building  and  the  uniformly 
brick  construction  of  the  walls  every~where  visible,  they  do  seem  to  show  that  a  stone  temple 
does  not  exist  upon  the  site.  If  such  did  exist,  and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  place  so  important 
as  Karanbg  without  a  temple,  and  that  a  temple  of  stone,  it  probably  stood  nearer  to  the  • 
river  and  has  been  swept  away  when  the  stream  changed  its  channel.  The  ends  of  broken  walls 
jutting  out  from  the  steep  bank  show  that  the  houses  extended  for  some  distance  at  any  rate 
over  what  is  now  the  river,  and  it  may  well  be  that  with  the  disappearance  of  the  eastern  quarter 
of  the  town  there  disappeared  also  the  temple  of  Karandg. 

*Sir  Herbert  Thompson,  who  kindly  sent  me  a  translation  of  the  fragment,  adds  the  following  note: 
"The  story  in  Aethiopic  has  been  published  by  Basset,  Apocryphes  ^thiopiens,  iv.  1894,  and  by  K.  Fries  in 
the  Actes  du  8™^  Congr^s  des  Orientalistes  (Stockholm  1889)  published  in  1893.  From  an  Arabic  source 
the  story  has  been  told  by  Am^lineau,  Actes  des  Martyrs,  1890,  p.  183." 

fWhere  Meroitic  is  used  in  contradistinction  to  Blemyan,  it  is  intended  to  denote  by  the  first  term  that 
period  in  the  history  of  the  inter-cataract  region  which  ended  with  the  campaign  of  Petronius  in  23  b.  C,  i.  e., 
the  period  of  occupation  by  the  Meroitic  people  of  the  Kandakid  empire ;  the  second  term  is  used  with  reference 
to  the  subsequent  occupation  of  the  same  territory  by  the  Blemyes,  an  off-shoot  but  not  a  direct  representative 
of  Meroe,  which  began  probably  about  100  a.  d.  and  continued  till  the  campaign  of  Silko  c.  543  a.  d. 

Jin  the  time  of  Petronius  the  Kandakids  had  seized  the  Egyptian  town  of  Dakkeh,  but  the  northernmost 
of  their  own  strongholds  which  Petronius  had  to  capture  was  Kasr  Ibrim. 


6 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


The  Castle 
as  it  was. 


The  Visit  of  In  the  early  years  of  the  fifth  century  a.  d.  the  Greek  historian  Olympiodorus,  then  stopping 
doruT^^'  Aswan  for  the  purpose  of  collecting  material  for  his  work,  was  invited  by  the  Blemyes  to 

visit  their  country;  welcomed  both  as  a  writer  and  as  a  fellow  pagan,  he  was  entertained  at  the 
various  towns  between  the  northern  or  Nobad  frontier  and  Kasr  Ibrim  on  the  south.  At  this 
time  the  decadence  must  already  have  begun  amongst  the  Blemyes,  whom  the  destruction  of 
Meroe  in  the  middle  of  the  previous  century  had  probably  hit  hard,*  but  the  community  was 
still  a  flourishing  one.  Already  from  the  high  citadel  of  Sheikh  Daoud  our  traveller  would  have 
had  pointed  out  to  him  the  patch  of  gray  and  white  beyond  the  tree-tops  that  stood  for  Karanog. 
As  on  the  next  morning  he  sailed  up  the  stream  along  the  palm  groves,  a  turn  in  the  green  river 
bank  would  disclose  quite  near  to  hand  the  streets  and  buildings  of  the  town  that  huddled  on 
the  lowest  slopes  of  the  desert.  To  the  right  was  the  castle,  a  three-storeyed  building  whose 
broad  expanse  of  blank  walls  was  broken  only  by  a  few  windows,  small  as  windows  must  be  that 
look  out  on  the  burning  sun  and  driving  sand  of  Nubia,  and  set  high  up  so  as  to  give  defence 
against  an  enemy's  attack.  Simple  as  it  was,  the  building  was  not  without  dignity;  the  severity 
of  its  lines  was  relieved  by  the  pronounced  batter  of  the  walls,  which  gave  also  an  air  of  solidity 
such  as  comes  from  the  sloping  buttresses  of  northern  architecture ;  the  roof-line  broken  by  the 
high  curves  of  the  vaults,  and  the  stepped  brickwork  of  their  corbelled  ends,  were  in  strong 
contrast  to  the  straightness  of  its  general  features;  the  arched  windows  of  the  middle  tier,  set 
between  the  pointed  hoods  of  the  lower  windows  and  the  flat-topped  slits  of  the  third  floor, 
harmonized  with  the  round  vaultings  and  tied  up  the  whole  design  into  an  architectural  unity. 
On  the  low  ground  beneath  the  castle  rock  a  smaller  house  surrounded  by  a  long,  low  court- 
yard wall  closed  in  the  town  to  the  north.  Over  the  top  of  this  the  eye  caught  the  roofs  and  upper 
windows  of  another  great  building  almost  as  imposing  as  the  castle  itself,  that  occupied  a  spur 
of  rock  just  to  the  south  of  it  and  stood  high  over  the  close-set  houses  of  the  lower  town. 
The  town  was  one  of  narrow  and  irregular  streets,  if  streets  they  could  be  called,  that 
turned  and  twisted  between  houses  two  and  three  storeys  high  which,  though  orientated 
regularly,  were  dotted  here  or  there  at  random,  having  no  uniform  frontage,  but  set  back  or 
projecting  forward  according  as  the  area  each  occupied  was  greater  or  smaller  than  that  of  its 
neighbour.  One  house,  built  over  the  ruins  of  an  older  structure,  might  stand  on  a  roughly  levelled 
plot  several  feet  higher  than  that  next  door;  the  solid  walls  of  some  three-storeyed  building  whose 
courtyard  blocked  with  storehouses  and  low-vaulted  magazines  betokened  the  wealth  of  its 
owner,  stood  cheek  by  jowl  with  the  straggling  hovel  of  a  poor  man,  whose  womankind  would 
gather  on  its  flat  roof  of  mud  and  palm  leaves  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  Greek  visitor  as  he  passed 
on  his  way  from  the  river  bank  to  the  castle. 
The  Interior  When  he  had  climbed  the  low,  shelving  rock  and  passed  through  the  single  narrow  doorway 
of  the  Castle.  ^YiQ^l  gave  entrance  to  the  castle,  Olympiodorus  found  himself  in  a  long,  vaulted  hall,  with  doors 
in  each  of  its  sides.  It  was  plainly  whitewashed,  and  though  the  single  window  was  small  and 
set  so  high  up  that  its  top  was  almost  level  with  the  crown  of  the  vault,  the  morning  sun  striking 
through  gave  a  diffused  light  which,  when  once  his  eyes  had  grown  accustomed  to  it,  was  quite 
sufficient  and  a  welcome  relief  from  the  dazzling  glare  outside.  On  his  left  a  doorway  opened 
onto  the  great  staircase  that,  winding  round  its  heavy  brick  pillar,  led  to  the  dwelling-rooms 
above ;  a  low  hatch-window  in  the  same  wall  communicated  with  a  small  cupboard-like  chamber 
beneath  the  vaulting  of  the  lower  stair-flights,  where  perhaps  slept  the  janitor  who  scrutinized 


*It  is  quite  possible  that  the  Blemyes,  or  at  least  Blemyan  contingents,  fought  on  the  side  of  Meroe  in  the 
campaign  which  ended  so  disastrously  for  the  Meroitic  empire,  and  that  their  loss  was  material  as  well  as 
moral;  at  any  rate  the  supposition  that  the  victory  of  Aezanas  marks  the  turning  point  in  the  fortunes  of  the 
Blemyes,  as  illustrated  by  the  difference  between  the  earlier  and  later  buildings  of  Karanog,  is  a  tempting  one, 
nor  does  the  fact  of  the  comparatively  successful  resistance  offered  by  them  to  Maximinus  a  century  later  make 
it  at  all  impossible. 


GENERAL  INTRODUCTION 


7 


the  visitors  mounting  to  the  upper  rooms.    But  keeping  for  the  present  to  the  ground  floor,  The  Interior 

the  historian  passed  through  a  second  small,  vaulted  room  whose  doorway  lay  opposite  to  that  by  "-^^  ^  ^ 

which  he  had  just  entered  the  castle,  and  found  himself  once  more  in  the  open  air.    He  was  in 

a  courtyard  open  to  the  sky,  shut  in  all  round  by  lofty  walls,  between  which,  as  down  a  well, 

the  light  and  air  came,  to  be  caught  as  best  might  be  by  the  narrow  windows  that  faced  upon 

the  court.    Around  two  sides  of  it,  a  little  above  the  windows  of  the  ground-floor  rooms,  ran  a 

makeshift  wooden  gallery,  its  heavier  timbers  bedded  in  the  brickwork  and  supported  at  their 

outer  ends  by  big  uprights  that  sorely  cumbered  the  narrow  ground  space ;  a  second  and  lighter 

staging  ran  at  a  higher  level  and  was  reached  from  the  first  by  a  steep  ladder.    Both,  however, 

seemed  to  be  rather  temporary  structures  that  could  easily  be  dismantled,  and  indeed  their 

inconvenience  was  obvious  enough,  for  the  planking  that  ran  just  above  the  windows  of  the 

lower  rooms  shut  out  effectively  even  the  little  light  that  a  Nubian  requires  indoors,  and  made 

very  necessary  the  lamps  that  burned  within  nearly  all  day  long.    The  scene  was  busy  enough. 

The  courtyard,  like  all  the  rooms  of  the  ground  floor,  was  given  over  to  domestic  uses.    In  one 

corner,  in  a  great  oval-topped  oven,  was  being  prepared  the  durra  bread  for  the  day;  here  and 

there  squatted  women  grinding  corn  or  pounding  lentils  in  stone  troughs ;  other  servants  passed 

to  and  fro  from  the  storerooms  to  the  kitchen,  or  carried  away  to  the  magazines  the  jars  of  wine 

that  Olympiodorus'  vessel  had  brought  as  cargo  upstream  and  the  corn  that  was  fetched  in  from 

the  fields  to  store  for  future  use.    The  visitor  must  needs  peer  through  the  open  door  on  his 

right  into  the  kitchen,  where  through  the  pungent  smoke  that  eddied  round  the  vault  and  poured 

out  of  the  narrow  window,  and  through  the  darkness  that  a  lamp  set  in  a  niche  in  the  far  wall 

illumined  but  could  not  dispel,  he  could  see  the  preparations  being  made  for  his  welcome.  The 

walls  of  the  room  were  plastered  with  mud  which  had  never  been  whitewashed  and  was  now 

blackened  with  smoke  and  grime,  the  mud  floor  was  worn  rough  and  uneven  by  feet  trampling 

where  water  had  been  spilled;  two  or  three  bricks  or  stones  laid  together  served  as  fireplaces, 

wherein  a  handful  of  charcoal  glowed  beneath  a  rough,  handmade  pot  of  black  clay,  the  incised 

decoration  of  which  had  long  since  disappeared  under  a  goodly  coating  of  soot.    From  beneath 

the  springers  of  the  vault,  along  either  side  of  the  room,  projected  stones,  rounded  and  pierced, 

built  into  the  brickwork,  through  which  ropes  were  passed  that  stretched  across  from  wall  to 

wall;  from  the  ropes  there  hung  above  the  heads  of  the  cooks  bunches  of  vegetables,  shallow 

brightly  coloured  trays  of  basketwork  containing  dried  bread,  dates  and  peas,  earthenware  pots 

and  joints  of  fresh  meat;  there  were  no  shelves,  but  everything  that  was  not  stacked  upon  the 

ground  or  put  in  chests  of  unbaked  mud  was  hung  in  this  way  from  the  roof  and  was  exposed  to 

the  heat  and  smoke  from  below. 

•  From  the  kitchen  the  historian  was  led  to  quieter  rooms  on  the  south  side  of  the  court. 
Here,  approached  less  directly  through  other  rooms,  were  two  magazines  (4  and  5  on  plan). 
The  inner  of  these  was  small  and  windowless,  lit  only  by  a  lamp  that  stood  in  a  niche  in  the  east 
wall,  and  here  were  stored  the  more  valuable  of  the  castle's  treasures;  the  outer  room,  which 
was  large  and  lit  by  two  high-set  windows  (see  PI.  6,  Fig.  a),  was  given  over  to  stores  of  a  more 
domestic  sort.  In  the  far  corner,  on  a  raised  platform,  stood  a  great  bin  of  clay  filled  with  corn, 
and  sacks  and  baskets  of  corn  were  ranged  along  the  walls  beside  it;  here  were  rows  of  wine- 
vessels,  some  the  ungainly  pots  that  held  the  vegetable  beer  of  the  country,  some  slender 
amphorae  docketed  in  ink  with  the  names  of  Greek  or  Egyptian  importers.  Just  such  amphorae 
as  these  the  porters  were  even  then  bringing  up  from  the  newly -arrived  ship;  a  steward  seated 
by  the  doorway  counted  these  as  they  came  in,  sealed  them  afresh  with  soft  mud,  and  stamped 
them  with  the  new  castle  mark,  after  which  they  were  set  in  their  places  amid  the  older  stock; 
perhaps  a  list  of  all,  written  in  white  ink  on  a  potsherd,  was  duly  made  out  and  filed  with  the 
castle  accounts. 


8 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


The  The  rooms  to  the  west  of  the  court  were  next  visited.    Here  the  servants  of  the  household 

of^e^Castle  ^^^^^  worked;  women  were  to  be  seen  spinning  thread  or  making  cloth,  and  preparing  oils 
for  the  toilet,  or  making  beer  from  pounded  seeds.  Some  of  these  rooms  facing  on  the  courtyard 
were  so  ill  lit  for  the  purposes  for  which  they  were  needed  that  not  only  the  walls  and  ceilings 
but  the  floors  also  were  whitewashed,  and  in  the  subdued,  reflected  light  the  bodies  of  the  lightly 
clad  women  showed  as  brown  blotches  against  which  gleamed  here  and  there  the  blue  or  gold 
of  the  glass  beads  that  they  wore  in  such  profusion.  In  one  room,  where  perhaps  the  guards 
lounged  idly,  the  visitor  smiled  to  see  rude  pictures  scratched  upon  the  walls:  drawings  of  camels 
and  crocodiles,  and  of  warriors  or  huntsmen  mounted  on  galloping  horses  and  hurling  lances, 
or  of  many-oared  Nile  boats  with  great  lateen  sails,  the  handiwork  of  the  artist  in  the  troop. 
As  he  passed  from  chamber  to  chamber  with  his  guides,  Olympiodorus  could  see  a  strange  medley 
of  peoples:  in  contrast  to  the  straight-nosed,  thin-lipped  aristocrats  whom  he  followed  were  the 
negroes,  who  formed  the  bulk  of  the  town's  inhabitants,  the  desert  folk  of  mixed  blood,  Nubians 
or  settlers  from  the  western  desert,  Egyptians,  perhaps  amongst  them  ex-soldiers  of  the  Roman 
garrison  captured  in  some  northern  raid,  a  one-time  Christian  monk  who  had  bought  his  life 
by  renouncing  his  faith,  and  maybe  some  fellow  Greek  who  to  save  his  faith  had  taken  refuge 
with  the  barbarians  and  was  helping  them  to  imitate  the  forms  of  polite  life  that  prevailed  in 
the  Byzantine  court; — ^all  had  their  place  in  the  little  kingdom  whose  overlord,  harking  back  to 
an  alien  tradition  interrupted  ages  since,  called  himself  the  King  of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt. 
The  Upper  Leaving  the  servants'  quarters  of  the  ground  floor,  the  guest  mounted  the  smaller  staircase 

Rooms.  jj^  ^j^g  southwest  comer  of  the  building  that  led  primarily  to  the  women's  quarters.  These  were 
more  secluded,  perhaps,  than  were  the  other  rooms,  but  there  was  nothing  of  that  rigid  privacy 
that  surrounds  the  harim  of  to-day;  the  Blemyan  women  went  unveiled  and  mixed  freely  with 
their  men-folk  indoors  and  out:  their  rooms  were  open  to  the  visitor,  and  from  them  he  could 
pass  freely  into  the  main  dwelling  chambers  and  the  official  halls  that  occupied  this,  the  principal 
floor  of  the  castle.  On  this  upper  storey  was  to  be  seen  the  wealth  and  culture  of  which  Silko's 
victory,  a  little  more  than  a  century  later,  was  to  sweep  every  trace  away.  The  architecture 
was  still  simple  enough,  but  the  high  arched  windows,  set  only  a  little  way  above  the  floor,  lit 
up  the  interior,  and  stood  in  marked  contrast  to  the  narrow  slits  that  pierced  the  vaults  of  the 
ground-floor  rooms.  On  the  whitewashed  walls  may  well  have  hung  curtains  with  dyed  patterns 
of  red  and  blue;  the  light  was  broken  up  by  screens  of  sandstone  curiously  carved  in  open-work 
with  figures  of  strange  animals  or  twining  lotus  flowers,  and  was  caught  in  the  depths  of  delicate 
glass  vessels,  amber,  white  or  blue,  imported  from  the  factories  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Here 
were  bronze  vessels  of  Greek  workmanship,  some  of  them  heirlooms  handed  down  from  the 
days  of  the  early  settlers  when  the  bronze-workers  of  Alexandria  were  famous,  and  others  of 
ruder  native  work  with  hammered  designs,  the  alloy  of  a  rich  gold  colour  or  plated  with  tin  to 
resemble  silver.  In  the  women's  quarters  were  caskets  of  wood  inlaid  with  ivory,  toilet-boxes 
of  turned  wood  or  of  lacquer-work  in  polished  red  and  green  and  yellow,  cut  through  so  as  to 
show  the  natural  wood  in  patterns  of  festooning  leaves,  bags  of  cut  and  dyed  leather,  bottles  of 
unguents  and  toilet  instruments  of  iron  and  of  bronze.  Scattered  here  and  there  were  fine 
examples  of  painted  pottery,  which  for  variety  of  colour  and  design  far  surpassed  anything  that 
Egypt  or  the  Roman  world  could  then  produce;  from  these  the  eye  would  turn  with  more 
amusement  than  admiration  to  rude  terra-cotta  statuettes  of  birds  or  men,  or  to  a  small  roughly 
carved  or  painted  stone  figure  of  a  hawk  resembling  somewhat  those  that  stood  above  the  graves 
in  the  cemetery  to  the  south,  objects  crude  enough  if  viewed  as  works  of  art,  but  cherished  as 
emblems  of  the  religion  which  the  Blemyes  championed  against  a  Christian  world.  In  one 
room,  perhaps,  was  transacted  the  official  business  of  the  kingdom,  where  an  Egyptian  scribe, 
whose  learning  excused  his  Christianity,  translated  into  official  Greek  such  letters  as  were  to 
be  dispatched  to  local  governors  or  to  friends  beyond  the  proper  Blemyan  borders,  or  the  lord 


GENERAL  INTRODUCTION 


9 


of  Karanbg  himself  wrote  his  orders  in  the  traditional  Meroitic  script  that  was  soon  to  become  The  Upper 

a  mystery  and  a  legend.    Amid  such  evidences  of  a  real,  if  barbaric,  civilization,  it  was  easy  for 

the  visitor  to  forget  the  growing  poverty  of  the  town,  the  gradual  degeneration  of  this  little 

kingdom,  now  shut  in  to  north  and  to  south  by  religious  foes  and  thrown  back  upon  its  own 

all  too  scant  resources ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  as  he  gazed  out  from  the  windows  it  was  difficult 

not  to  draw  the  contrast  between  this  decaying  stronghold  of  paganism  and  the  huge  monastery* 

whose  walls  he  had  a  little  while  before  seen  rising  at  Akhmim.    Yet  the  view  itself  was  fair 

enough,  looking  from  the  southern  windows  over  palm-grove,  durra  field  and  river  to  where  in 

the  far  distance  the  noonday  sun  shone  full  upon  the  temple  that  crowned  the  northern  corner 

of  the  heights  of  Kasr  Ibrim,  and  the  historian  must  needs  have  understood  the  better  for  it 

the  tenacity  of  a  desert  people  that  for  centuries  had  held  fast  these  fertile  reaches  against  the 

power  of  Rome.    Certainly  he  must  have  thanked  the  gods  for  the  chance  that  had  given  him 

so  close  a  knowledge  of  the  Blemyes,  when  for  other  Greek  writers  they  were  still  but  border 

thieves  given  to  human  sacrifice  in  the  Sun's  honour  and  to  a  warlike  activity  that  made  them 

the  scourge  of  Egypt. 


Olympiodorus'  own  account  of  his  visit  to  the  Blemyan  cities  is  lost,  and  the  above  is  but 
an  attempt  to  give  a  partial  picture  of  the  town  and  castle  as  it  was,  an  attempt  based  on  the 
dull  evidence  of  detailed  measurements  and  petty  finds  which,  for  the  benefit  of  the  student 
who  cares  to  verify  a  too  fanciful  account,  is  given  in  other  and  more  technical  chapters.  To  a 
certain  extent  the  furniture  of  the  tombs  has  been  drawn  upon  to  illustrate  the  houses  of  the 
people  with  whom  it  was  buried,  and  for  this,  as  well  as  for  various  historical  allusions,  the 
reader  must  be  referred  to  volumes  iii  and  iv  of  this  series.  Naturally,  when  a  particular  date  is 
chosen  out  of  a  long  period  for  which  chronological  evidence  is  scanty,  a  few  anachronisms 
may  have  crept  into  the  description,  but  it  is  hoped  that  those,  if  detected,  may  be  excused  in 
the  interests  of  an  attempt  to  introduce  all  the  details  that  can  as  yet  be  known  of  the  domestic 
life  of  the  people  of  Karanbg. 

*Thc  White  Monastery,  completed  by  Senouti  about  427  a.  d. 


CHAPTER  II 


CONSTRUCTIONAL  FEATURES 

Stonework  There  was  very  little  stone  building  at  Karanog.    Masonry  was  only  used  for  the  lowest 

courses  of  the  castle  and  of  house  2,  where  it  formed,  as  it  were,  a  podium  from  one  to  four 
courses  high ;  above  this  all  was  of  brick.  The  stones  that  were  used  were  carefully  cut,  averaging 
about  0.50  m.  either  way,  not  always  rectangular,  with  a  narrow  smoothed  edge  and  a  pick-dressed 
central  slab.  The  pick-dressing  represents  the  true  face  of  the  stone,  the  edge  being  trimmed  back , 
so  as  to  put  the  centre  in  slight  relief  ;  precisely  similar  stone-dressing  can  be  observed  on  other 
Blemyan  sites  such  as  the  cemeteries  at  Shablul  and  Anibeh,  at  Sheikh  Daoud,  Kasr  Ibrim, 
Gebel  Adda,  Faras  and  Behen ;  it  is  easily  to  be  distinguished  from  the  Coptic  style  of  stone-dressing 
to  be  seen  in  the  church  of  Kasr  Ibrim,  where  the  stones  are  small  regularly-cut  oblongs  with  a 
broad  smooth  edge  and  a  small  central  pick-dressed  panel  sunk  well  below  the  level  of  the 
smoothed  surface,  as  well  as  from  the  apparently  intermediate  early  Coptic  style  (also  to  be  seen 
in  the  Kasr  Ibrim  church)  where  the  broad  margin  is  dressed  with  diagonal  striations  and  the 
centre,  which  presents  the  same  level,  has  three  or  four  regular  rows  of  short  pick-markings  on 
the  opposite  diagonal.  On  some  of  these  other  town-sites  there  is  a  considerably  larger  proportion 
of  masonry  as  against  brickwork;  the  gateways  of  Sheikh  Daoud  and  Faras  and  the  great  east 
wall  of  Gebel  Adda  are  paralleled  by  nothing  at  Karanog;  but  though  it  may  be  possible  to 
distinguish  between  Blemyan  and  later  work  we  have  as  yet  no  criterion  by  which  to  differentiate 
Blemyan  from  the  pre- Roman  Meroitic  style  of  building  employed  in  this  region,  and  the  imposing 
masonry  of  these,  mostly  southern,  sites  may  in  part  be  due  to  their  earlier  but  allied  inhabitants. 
It  is  perhaps  safer  to  describe  this  form  of  masonry  by  the  general  term  "Romano-Nubian" 
which  we  have  used  to  include  both  the  true  Meroitic  and  the  Blemyan  peoples. 

The  stone  courses  were  dry-built;  only  the  outer  stones  had  worked  faces,  those  on  the 
inner  face  of  the  wall  being  squared  but  seldom  dressed ;  the  narrow  and  irregular  space  between 
the  stones  of  the  two  faces  was  filled  in  with  a  core  of  rubble  and  mason's  chippings.  Only  the 
outer  walls  of  the  castle  had  stone  foundations.  Immediately  over  the  top  course  of  stones,  and 
in  the  internal  brick  walls  above  the  fourth  or  fifth  course  of  bricks,  was  set  a  layer  of  durra- 
stalks  or  palm-ribs,  running  through  the  wall  at  right  angles  to  its  direction,  as  if  to  form  a 
dry-course.  A  dry-course  in  this  country  is  obviously  unnecessary  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  what 
purpose  this  feature  can  have  served. 

The  Bricks.  The  size  of  building-bricks  averages  0.34  m.  by  0.175  n^-  by  0.095  i^--  giving  in  construction 
exactly  one  metre  of  height  to  ten  courses  of  brick,  two  metres  of  wall-length  to  six  and  a  half 
stretchers,  and  about  the  same  length  (2.03  m.)  to  eleven  headers.  The  bricks  are  plain  oblongs 
without  frogs. 

In  the  castle  bonding  is  observed  in  the  case  of  all  walls,  but  differs  considerably  in  thorough- 
ness according  as  the  constructional  character  of  the  walls  made  the  bonding  more  or  less 
important  for  their  stability.  Thus  in  the  angles  of  the  main  outer  walls  great  care  was  shown 
to  secure  a  deep  and  regular  bond,  and  the  same  is  true  of  most  of  the  heavy  walls  of  the  ground 
floor;  but  here  sometimes,  and  much  more  often  in  the  upper  storeys,  little  attention  had  been 
paid  to  the, joining  of  the  walls;  for  a  number  of  courses  the  end  of  one  wall  would  simply  abut 

(10) 


CONSTRUCTIONAL  FEATURES 


11 


on  the  face  of  the  other  and  then  a  single  course  of  headers,  or  even  a  single  brick,  would  serve  The  Bricks. 
to  unite  the  two.    Consequently  in  the  ruin  of  the  castle  a  wall  could  fall  away   (as  was  the 
case  with  the  south  wall  of  room  20  a)  and  leave  very  little  trace  of  itself  upon  the  face  of  the 
wall  with  which  it  had  been  supposed  to  be  joined. 

Within  each  wall  itself  the  bonding  of  the  bricks  is  careful  and  good,  with  alternate  courses 
of  headers  and  stretchers:  there  is  no  trace  here  of  the  building  style  found  on  such  an  early 
Nubian  site  as  Areika,  where  a  wall  resolves  itself  into  so  many  pillars  of  brickwork  with 
curtain- walls  of  the  same  thickness  connecting  them  but  forming  with  them  no  intrinsic  whole. 
All  the  Karanog  walls  of  the  early  period — that  is  of  the  castle  and  of  the  houses  in  the  lower 
strata — were  regular  and  homogeneous,  except  the  "header"  walls  of  house  6,  rooms  A,  B  and  C. 

In  the  buildings  of  a  later  age  certain  changes  were  noticeable.  The  work  was  throughout  The  Later 
flimsier  and  more  careless:  the  old  walls  of  a  metre's  thickness  were  replaced  by  slighter  ones 
of  0.50  or  0.60  m.  and  the  bricklaying  was  less  regular  than  before:  sometimes  rough  stones, 
more  or  less  the  size  of  bricks,  were  inserted  in  the  wall,  old  bricks,  sometimes  broken  ones,  were 
re-used,  and  the  irregularities  of  such  slip-shod  work  were  or  were  not  filled  in  by  a  rough  daubing 
with  mud.  Whereas  in  the  earlier  period  the  wall-faces  were  smoothly  rendered  and 
whitewashed,  these  later  walls  which  really  stood  in  far  greater  need  of  such  a  seemly  covering 
were  either  left  bare  or  plastered  with  a  mud  which,  less  skilfully  applied,  tended  to  fall  away 
far  more  readily.  The  house-walls  of  the  upper  stratum,  as  being  more  exposed  to  the  wind  and 
weather,  might  be  expected  to  have  lost  the  rendering  they  may  have  originally  possessed;  and 
it  is  true  that  in  the  castle ,  belonging  to  the  earlier  date ,  the  mud  facing  had  disappeared  completely 
from  the  exposed  wall-faces;  but  even  where  the  later  walls,  directly  superimposed  upon  the 
earlier,  had  been  subject  to  the  same  conditions,  the  plastering  would  generally  be  preserved 
upon  the  latter  and  on  the  former  be  completely  lacking  (PI.  lo). 

A  very  distinctive  feature  of  the  later  walls  was  the  fondness  for  inserting  courses  of  headers 
laid  on  edge  and  at  a  slight  slant.  This  style  of  work  had  been  noticed  in  the  rib-walls  of  several 
of  the  tombs  (vol.  iii,  p.  12),  where  no  chronological  evidence  could  be  obtained:  from  the  town- 
site  it  became  clear  that  while  it  was  not  unknown  at  an  early  time  its  use  gradually  came  into 
favour,  and  was  so  rare  at  first  and  so  common  later  that  it  can  be  called  characteristic  of  the 
end  of  the  period.  In  house  3,  in  the  north  wall  of  room  5,  there  were  edge-set  headers  in  what 
must  certainly  be  an  early  wall:  this  is  the  only  instance  of  their  use  in  the  first  period.  House  4 
had  undergone  at  least  three  periods:  the  original  plan  was  first  modified  and  added  to,  and 
later  this  building  was  destroyed  and  an  entirely  new  one  constructed  over  its  ruins :  one  of  the 
doors  of  the  original  house  was  walled  up  during  the  alterations,  and  in  this  wall  there  is  a  course 
of  headers  on  edge,  which  belongs  therefore  to  a  second  period  in  the  town's  history.  Generally, 
however,  the  style  is  to  be  found  in  walls  that  are  manifestly  of  the  latest  date ,  as  in  K  H  8,  1 4  and, 
most  striking  instance,  in  the  patching  up  of  the  main  gateway  of  the  castle.  In  this  latest 
period  the  size  of  bricks  tends  to  diminish,  particularly  as  regards  their  thickness:  thus  0.33  by 
0.15  by  0.095  is  a  common  size  for  bricks,  and  sometimes  the  thickness  is  considerably  less 
than  this. 

Generally  speaking,  therefore,  it  is  quite  easy  to  distinguish  a  wall  of  the  early  from  one  oi Barrel 
the  late  period  of  Blemyan  history  so  far  as  this  is  fairly  represented  by  Karanog.  The  later  ^awZ/s. 
wall  is  thinner,  the  bricks  used  are  generally  smaller,  and  there  is  a  predilection  for  courses  of 
edge-set  headers;  the  early  walls  are  stout,  well  laid  with  large  bricks,  and  as  a  rule  carefully 
rendered  and  whitewashed.  For  roofing  the  rooms  of  the  castle  and  of  the  earlier  houses  the 
barrel- vault  was  invariably  used.  The  method  of  its  construction  has  been  sufficiently  explained 
in  vol.  iii,  p.  18,  and  though  in  a  house  room  the  area  to  be  spanned  was  far  greater  than  was  the 
case  in  the  tombs,  that  method  was  unchanged  and  nothing  in  the  way  of  centering  was  employed. 
This  system  is  of  course  well  known,  in  x\sia  as  well  as  in  Egypt,  but  whereas  the  material 


12 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


Barrel  employed  by   the   Persians   and   Byzantines*  was   burnt  brick   or   stone,   and  the  vault 
Vaults.  ^Q^jd  accordingly  be  constructed  over  a  much  greater  area  (the  span  of  the  great  vault  at  Ctesiphon 
is  25.80  m.),  the  crude  brick  used  in  the  Nile  valley  was  of  too  soft  a  nature  to  stand  the 
strain  of  a  span  much  more  than  four  metres  across. 

But  where  the  room  was  thus  small,  the  crude  brick  barrel- vault  answered  its  purpose  well 
and  where,  as  is  the  case  in  several  of  the  castle  rooms,  the  roof  is  in  whole  or  part  preserved, 
the  arch,  which  with  its  single  course  of  bricks  appears  so  fragile,  is  found  fully  equal  to  bearing 
any  normal  weight.  The  bricks  are  larger  but  thinner  than  those  used  for  wall-construction  (they 
measure  0.37  by  0.32  by  0.06  m.),  they  are  made  of  mud  mixed  with  chopped  straw  and  dung, 
and  their  sides  are  deeply  frogged  with  curved  lines  impressed  by  the  fingers ;  the  mortar  is  of  the 
same  composition  and  binds  well  with  the  bricks,  so  that  the  whole  arch  is  practically  a  solid 
unit.  The  slightly  stilted  or  ovoid  curve  which  resulted  naturally  from  the  method  of  building 
gave  additional  strength  at  the  crown.  The  frogging  of  the  bricks  and  the  curve  taken  by  the 
vault  can  be  clearly  seen  in  the  photograph  on  PI.  6,  Fig.  a.  The  vault  springs  flush  with  the 
wall-face  but  the  single  course  of  bricks  that  composes  it  occupies  naturally  but  a  small  part 
of  the  wall's  width.  Between  the  haunches  of  two  parallel  vaults  the  wall  continued  upwards, 
slightly  overlapping  their  curve  but  losing  something  of  the  thickness  which  it  had  below  their 
spring:  thus  in  the  castle  the  party  walls,  which  are  a  metre  thick  on  the  ground  floor,  lose  some 
twenty  centimetres  with  each  storey.  On  each  side,  therefore,  between  the  extrados  and  the 
wall  there  was  a  roughly  triangular  empty  space  below  the  level  of  the  crown  of  the  vault,  that 
is,  below  the  level  of  any  floor  that  was  to  rest  upon  it.  To  fill  this  spandril  up  solid  would  have 
imposed  a  heavy  sideways  strain  upon  the  spring  and  haunch  of  the  arch,  its  weakest  part:  some 
means  therefore  had  to  be  taken  to  avoid  this.  In  the  great  Coptic  monastery  of  St.  Simeon 
near  Aswan  the  problem  was  solved  by  spanning  this  space  with  a  subsidiary  vault;  the  floor 
then  rested  upon  the  crowns  of  three  arches,  a  large  central  one  flanked  by  two  little  ones,  and 
the  small  flattened  spandrils  thus  left  could  be  either  filled  in  without  danger  or  bridged  by 
flat  stones.  A  similar  system  of  "tubes"  was  adopted  in  the  Persian  palace  of  Ukheidar 
(Miss  G.  L.  Bell,  loc.  cit..  Fig.  7) ,  where,  however,  there  was  not,  for  the  most  part,  a  second  floor, 
and  its  object  may  have  been  to  give  coolness  to  the  rooms,  as  suggested  by  Miss  Bell,  as  well 
as  to  make  possible  a  flat  roof;  in  this  case  then  the  "tubes"  run  over  the  party- walls,  which  do 
not  rise  above  the  springers  of  the  vault  proper.  At  Karanog  the  system  employed  was  different. 
For  the  first  few  days  the  absence  both  of  subsidiary  vaults  and  of  any  quantity  of  filling  in  the 
spandrils  puzzled  me:  the  vaults,  or  parts  of  them,  were  preserved  in  a  number  of  cases;  loose 
bricks  and  stone  slabs  might  be  piled  upon  the  vault  and  fill  the  spandrils,  but  the  floors  were 
invariably  gone  and  it  was  difficult  to  see  how  they  had  been  supported.  In  one  place  only 
(room  II  on  the  first  floor:  cf.  PI.  7,  Fig.  a)  did  the  evidence  for  the  construction,  or  rather  the 
construction  itself,  remain  in  siiti.  Between  the  wall-face  and  the  extrados  of  the  arch  two  bricks 
and  a  half  were  set  at  a  slight  angle  from  the  horizontal:  they  formed  a  straight  line,  one  point 
resting  upon  the  back  of  the  vault,  the  other  wedged  against  the  wall;  they  were  well  bedded 
in  mud  at  each  end  and  against  one  another  and  the  mere  pressure  kept  them  rigid.  The  upper 
end  of  the  line,  that  against  the  wall-face,  was  on  the  level  of  the  crown  of  the  vault:  it  sloped  so 
little  that  where  it  formed  an  angle  with  the  extrados,  at  its  lowest  point,  the  space  between  it 
and  the  floor-level  was  very  small  and  the  stone  flags  that  formed  the  floor  could  be  laid  across 
this  with  little  or  no  support.  To  give  a  little  strength  to  what  was  necessarily  a 
weak  construction,  thin  walls  were  built  up  at  intervals  of  one  or  two  metres  from  the  base  of 

*G.  L.  Bell,  The  Vaulting  System  of  Ukheidar.  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  xxx,  i,  p.  69 ;  Choisy,  L'art 
de  bitir  ches  les  Byzantins;  Dieulafoy,  L'art  ancien  de  la  Perse,  vol.  iv;  for  Egypt,  Perrot  et  Chipiez,  Histoire 
de  l'art  dans  I'antiquit^,  p.  534;  cf.  also  vols,  ii  and  iii  of  our  Expedition,  viz.,  "Churches  in  Lower  Nubia,  " 
and  "Karan6g.  " 


CONSTRUCTIONAL  FEATURES 


13 


the  triangle  across  the  spandril  to  the  level  of  the  sloping  brick  line  which  thus  received  certain  Barrel 
amount  of  lateral  support.    The  method  is  so  peculiar  that  I  was  fortunate  in  securing  a 
photograph  of  the  only  example  of  it  which  time  and  its  inherent  weakness  have  allowed  to 
survive. 

Only  in  the  castle  were  the  walls  standing  high  enough  to  show  the  methods  employed  for  Vaults 
arching  doors  and  windows,  but  here  there  were  plenty  of  varieties  to  be  observed.  The  three 
rows  of  windows  in  the  outer  walls  were  all  different,  and  inside  the  doors  and  niches  illustrated 
well  the  principles  and  habits  of  the  builders.  The  true  arch  was  known  and  employed,  but 
where  possible  preference  was  given  to  the  barrel- vault  as  characteristic  of  the  national  architec- 
ture. The  top  windows  of  the  outer  walls  were  flat-headed  slits,  narrow  enough  to  be  spanned 
by  a  single  brick,  so  that  nothing  more  elaborate  than  this  was  needed.  On  the  ground  floor  the 
windows  had  a  false  arch  formed  of  two  vaulting  bricks  set  at  an  angle :  the  window  was  placed 
so  high  that  its  lintel  was  about  on  the  line  with  the  springers  of  the  vault  that  ran  along  the 
wall  on  the  inside,  and  its  top  came  almost  level  with  the  vault's  crown;  to  admit  the  light 
therefore  a  hole  had  to  be  knocked  through  the  side  of  the  vault,  and  between  the  head  of  the 
window  on  the  inner  wall-face  and  the  extrados  of  the  vault  above  the  hole  a  subsidiary  barrel- 
vault  was  made  which,  sloping  gently  down,  brought  the  light  into  the  chamber.  Had  there 
been  no  second  storey,  the  window  would  have  had  the  appearance  of  a  dormer  window,  such  as 
it  is  in  section,  but  in  reality  this  appearance  is  masked  by  the  main  outer  wall  rising  up  to 
second-storey  level.  Usually  the  collapse  of  the  room- vault  and  of  the  floor  which  it  supported 
had  involved  in  its  destruction  the  short  vault  through  which  the  light  came  into  the  chamber, 
and  had  this  always  been  the  case  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  see  how  these  high-set  windows 
could  have  been  of  any  use,  seeing  that  they  gave  directly  upon  the  haunch  of  the  roofing  vault; 
fortunately,  however,  one  or  two  examples,  as  in  rooms  5  and  12,  were  preserved  intact,  and 
explained  the  system. 

Another  curious  instance  of  hesitation  between  two  systems  was  seen  in  the  first  floor 
window  in  the  west  wall  of  the  light- well:  viewed  from  the  light- well  this  was  built  with  a 
true  arch  composed  of  vaulting  bricks  laid  flatways  as  headers,  there  being  two  rings  of 
six  bricks  each.  This  true  arch,  however,  did  not  run  right  through  the  thickness  of  the 
wall:  inside  it  gave  place  to  a  short  length  of  barrel- vaulting.  The  reason  of  this  mixture  is  fairly 
obvious.  A  barrel- vault  needs  an  upright  against  which  to  lean.  An  arch  was  built  in  the  face 
of  the  wall,  presumably  with  solid  centering,  and  to  minimize  the  amount  of  centering  necessary 
was  not  carried  back  for  more  than  one  brick's  thickness  beyond  the  wall  face:  against  this 
arch,  on  the  inside,  the  sloping  bricks  of  the  barrel- vault  could  well  be  laid,  and  the  Nubian 
builder  could  proceed  easily  in  the  style  to  which  he  was  most  addicted.  It  was  indeed  the  need 
of  a  centering  that  deterred  the  architects  of  Karandg  and  other  Blemyan  sites  from  building 
arches  where  a  vault  would  serve:  they  understood  the  arch  perfectly  well  and  took  advantage 
at  times  of  its  special  constructional  value  (cf.  iii,  p.  19),  but  on  them  as  on  the  modern  Nubian 
builder  it  entailed  the  labour  of  piling  up  for  its  temporary  support  a  solid  centering  of  bricks 
and  mud ;  consequently  in  Nubia  the  arch  was  comparatively  rare  and  usually  of  small  dimensions. 
For  arches  the  large  and  hard  vaulting-bricks  were  generally  used ;  thus  the  first-storey  windows 
in  the  outer  walls  were  built  of  eleven  such  bricks,  laid  edgewise  as  headers,  the  first  storey  window 
in  the  west  wall  of  the  light- well  was  arched  with  two  rings  of  the  same  laid  edgewise  as  headers, 
six  bricks  to  a  ring;  small  non-architectural  features  such  as  niches  in  the  walls  were  generally 
arched  with  ordinary  bricks  laid  flat  as  headers.  The  doors  are  usually  vaulted,  proper 
vaulting-bricks  being  used  and  laid  in  the  normal  way  with  their  thin  edge  showing  on  the  soffit ; 
in  one  case  (the  door  between  rooms  5  and  6  of  the  castle)  the  bricks  are  laid  flat  so  that  the  frogs 
show.  The  false  arches  of  the  ground-floor  windows  were  composed  of  two  vaulting-bricks  sloped 
against  each  other:  in  the  north  wall  of  the  light-well  the  small  first-storey  window  is  built  with 


14 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


Vaults 
and  Arches. 


Outside 
Stairways. 


a  skew  vault  of  ordinary  bricks,  two  and  a  half  to  a  ring.  For  the  small  windows  of  the  ground 
floor  and  the  third  storey,  ordinary  bricks  served  as  lintels:  the  larger  first-storey  windows 
had  lintels  of  rough  stone.  The  doorways  were  provided  with  stone  thresholds  and  with  hinge- 
stones  for  the  doors. 

In  some  of  the  houses  there  were  out-of-door  stairways  that  must  have  led  onto  the  roof  of 
such  parts  of  the  house  as  were  only  one  storey  high.  It  would  seem  that  not  all  the  buildings  of 
which  the  walls  can  be  traced  were  of  the  same  height :  many  may  have  been  but  store-chambers 
not  suited  to  supporting  upper  storeys,  but  with  a  flat  roof  laid  above  their  vaulting,  and  to  reach 
these  an  open  staircase  was  built  in  the  courtyard  against  the  range  of  magazines.  Thus  in  house  2 
there  is  in  the  southwest  corner  an  inner  staircase  leading  to  the  upper  floors,  but  there  is  also 
an  open  staircase  in  the  courtyard,  well  preserved,  and  it  is  not  unnatural  to  suppose  that  the 
whole  of  this  quarter  of  the  house  (rooms  1-5,  18-25)  stood  only  one  storey  high.  It  is  of  course 
possible  that  these  stairways,  which  generally  seem  to  stand  in  close  relation  to  rooms  that  are 
clearly  storerooms,  were  intended  to  give  access  not  to  the  roofs  but  to  the  magazines  themselves, 
where  doors  may  have  been  set  high  up  under  the  vault  ;  but  there  is  not  evidence  enough  to 
settle  the  point.  The  more  individual  features  of  the  various  buildings  are  dealt  with  in  the 
following  chapters,  where  also  are  given  the  grounds  for  such  general  deductions  as  have  been 
made  above. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  CASTLE  RUINS 
Detailed  Description  of  the  Rooms 

Room  I. 

Here  was  the  only  entrance  to  the  castle.  This  had  been  twice  destroyed.  The  north  jamb,  Room 
which  had  a  central  reveal,  only  stood  i.oo  m.  high.  On  the  south  side  of  the  gateway  the  wall 
for  a  length  of  2.00  m.  had  been  broken  away  right  down  to  the  foundations,  even  some  of  the 
stone  blocks  of  the  lower  courses  being  displaced.  This  break  had  been  hurriedly  repaired. 
The  gap  had  not  been  cut  square,  so  that  the  lowest  course  of  the  reconstructed  part  did  not  lie 
evenly;  in  the  four  lower  courses  rough  stones  were  freely  used  instead  of  brick,  and  neither 
these  nor  the  bricks  were  always  put  in  straight:  one  course  was  laid  on  edge  but  with  the 
bricks  sloping  in  every  direction,  and  some  bricks  were  laid  fiat  but  with  one  angle  pointing 
outside  the  wall  (PH.  3.5).  The  new  part  started  with  the  thickness  of  the  original  wall — i.oom. — 
but  soon  thinned  down,  especially  from  the  inside,  and  at  the  height  of  2.00  m.  was  only  0.60  m. 
thick.  The  whole  of  the  south  jamb  of  the  original  door  had  thus  been  destroyed  and  rebuilt  with 
every  sign  of  demoralized  haste,  only  to  be  destroyed  a  second  time  and  reduced  to  its  present 
ruinous  state.  Inside  the  room  all  the  doorways  were  systematically  breached.  On  the  west 
side  the  wall  had  been  broken  down  almost  to  the  width  of  the  inner  room  (3) ;  on  the  north,  the 
doorway  had  been  knocked  out  to  double  its  size,  while  opposite,  on  the  south,  the  entrance  to 
the  staircase  had  been  sadly  battered.  The  floor  level  had  almost  entirely  disappeared,  only 
the  rough  stone  foundations  being  left.  Of  the  vault  a  little  remained  in  the  northeast  corner, 
leaning  against  the  north  wall ;  like  the  walls  it  had  been  mud-rendered  and  whitewashed.  In  the 
room  were  found  fragments  of  characteristic  painted  Blemyan  pottery  and  one  piece  of  the  hard, 
white-faced,  highly  polished  ware  with  red  cross-hatching  found  at  Shablul  and  certainly  belonging 
to  the  latest  period:  it  connects  closely  with  certain  early  Coptic  types. 

There  were  also  found  a  lamp  of  the  covered  saucer  type,  very  much  broken;  a  painted 
doll's  head,  a  bone  lentoid  bead,  a  piece  of  twisted  bronze  wire,  a  child's  arm  torn  off  at  the 
elbow,  a  (broken)  mud  jar-sealing,  a  fragment  of  Arabic  MSS.  on  paper  (found  near  the  main 
doorway,  a  little  above  floor  level),  and,  on  the  threshold  of  the  west  doorway,  a  fragment  of 
papyrus  bearing  a  Coptic  version  of  the  story  of  St.  Sisinnius  (see  p.  5). 

Room  2  (The  Staircase). 

A  door  led  from  the  entrance-hall  to  the  main  staircase  of  the  building:  it  had  a  raised  Room. 
threshold  on  the  inside  of  the  door,  which  had  opened  outwards.  The  stairs  faced  one  on  entering, 
and  to  the  left  there  was  a  narrow  recess  between  the  central  pillar  and  the  wall  of  the  entrance- 
hall,  lighted  by  a  small  hatch-window  0.80  m.  above  floor  level,  through  the  latter  wall.  The 
pillar  had  been  footed  out  here,  for  1.05  m.  of  its  width,  to  a  height  of  0.60  m.  above  floor  level, 
so  as  to  narrow  the  passageway  to  0.40  m.  On  the  east  side  of  the  pillar  the  floor  dropped  0.60  m., 
to  the  level  of  the  foundations ;  the  return  westwards  at  the  end  of  this  space  was  screened  off  by 
a  thin  wall  shutting  off  the  low  vaulted  space  under  the  second  flight  of  steps,  that  on  the  south 
side  of  the  pillar.    This  small  sunken  space  may  have  been  used  as  a  cellar  or  possibly  as  a 

(15) 


16 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


guard-room  for  the  stair  porter.  The  first  flight  of  steps  was  carried  up  on  a  solid  base;  a  rough 
niche  had  been  hewn  out  in  the  pillar-face  and  its  smoke-blackened  condition  showed  that  a 
lamp  had  stood  within  it  to  light  up  the  stairs.  After  the  first  turn  the  steps  were  supported  on 
barrel- vaults.  The  second  flight  was  lighted  by  a  window  set  so  high  up  in  the  wall  that  its 
arch  just  cut  into  the  vault  springers  of  the  flight  above ;  the  wall  on  the  east  is  not  preserved  to 
a  height  sufficient  to  show  the  window  which  must  have  been  there.  The  first  floor  was  reached 
by  a  door  in  the  southwest  corner  of  the  stairway  leading  into  room  8  A.  its  jamb  0.15  m.  from 
the  face  of  the  south  wall.  The  stairs  sloped  at  an  angle  of  thirty  degrees  ;  the  actual  steps  were 
ill  preserved.  Of  the  first  flight  the  solid  base  naturally  remained,  but  the  form  of  the  steps  had 
for  the  most  part  disappeared ;  of  the  second,  only  a  little  of  the  vaulting  at  the  west  end  remained ; 
of  the  third  flight,  the  greater  part  of  the  vaulting;  the  beginning  of  the  next  flight  (that  on 
the  north  of  the  pillar) ,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  vaulting  of  the  upper  flight  on  the  west  side 
(see  PI.  5). 

Rough  measurements  were: 

The  solid  flight  reaches  a  level  of  0.70  m.  above  floor  level. 

The  second  flight  starts  at  c.  1.20  m.  (springers  at  0.75  m.)  and  ends  with  the  springers 
at  1.30  m. 

The  third  flight  rises  from  2.10  m.  to  2.50  m. 
The  fourth  flight  rises  from  2.90  m. 

Each  section  of  vaulting  is  carried  only  as  far  as  the  angle  of  the  central  pillar  and  the  next 
section  rests  upon  its  crown.  Owing  to  the  angle  at  which  the  ring-courses  are  laid  the  space 
between  the  wall  and  the  crown  of  the  vault  that  leads  up  towards  it  is  considerably  greater 
than  that  between  the  wall  and  the  springers  of  the  same  vault,  i.  e.,  between  the  wall  and  the 
angle  of  the  pillar;  the  earlier  ring-courses  of  each  section  of  vaulting  have  therefore  a  much 
greater  span  than  the  rest  of  the  section  which  lies  between  the  pillar  and  the  wall;  and  the 
corner  landing,  and  perhaps  the  top  step  of  each  flight,  rested  upon  the  vault  running  at  right 
angles  to  it. 

Room  3. 

Opening  out  of  the  entrance-hall,  this  room  was  little  more  than  a  passage  to  the  open 
court  or  light-well  (22).  It  had  been  much  ruined,  the  two  doors  were  widely  breached,  and 
most  of  the  west  wall  had  fallen.  The  vaulting  had  rested  against  the  east  wall;  very  little  of 
it  was  left.  Both  vault  and  walls  had  been  mud-rendered  and  whitewashed.  The  room  as  it 
now  stands  does  not  seem  to  have  received  any  light  other  than  that  which  came  in  by  the  doors ; 
if  there  was  ever  a  window  in  the  west  wall  it  was  small  and  set  very  high  up.  The  room  measured 
3.80  m.  by  3.50  m.  In  the  room  were  found  part  of  the  base  of  a  blue  glaze  vase  and  a 
stamped  mud  jar-sealing  (PI.  15). 

Room  4. 

The  only  approach  to  the  room  was  through  room  5 :  this  doorway  had  been  breached  at 
the  time  of  the  destruction  of  the  castle,  but  the  later  squatters  had  erected  in  it  a  sort  of  bin, 
running  two  flimsy  walls  of  mud  and  broken  brick  across  the  doorway  on  either  side  of  the  sill, 
and  thus  closing  up  the  room,  unless  indeed  they  used  as  a  door  the  hole  which  had  been  knocked 
through  into  room  3,  a  little  above  floor  level. 

The  vaulting  had  rested  against  the  east  wall ;  a  very  little  of  it  remained  in  the  northeast 
comer;  like  the  walls,  it  had  been  mud-rendered  and  whitewashed.  There  was  no  window  to  the 
room,  but  a  small  niche  in  the  east  wall  had  held  the  lamp  used  to  give  light.  Probably  this  was 
only  a  storeroom  and  required  safety  rather  than  illumination.    The  room  measured  3.10  m. 


THE  CASTLE  RUINS 


17 


by  3.45  m.  In  it  were  found  two  small  fragments  of  a  Meroitic  ostrakon,  the  upper  half  of  a  small  Room  4. 
blue  glaze  Osiris  amulet,  a  fragment  of  a  small  wooden  vase  lacquered  and  decorated  with  a 
sgraffiato  floral  design  (9111,  PI.  15),  several  fragments  of  ordinary  painted  Meroitic  pottery, 
one  of  Coptic  (red  paint  on  buff  slip)  and  one  of  the  late  Meroitic  or  transition  period  with  painted 
festoons  and  small  rosettes  in  relief. 

Room  5  (see  PI.  6). 

The  floor  is  of  rough  stone  slabs  overlaid  with  mud,  and  is  very  much  broken  up.  In  the  Room  5. 
southeast  corner  was  a  rectangular  platform  of  brickwork  1.20  m.  by  i.oo  m. ;  as  it  stood  only 
0.30  m.  above  the  level  of  the  stone  foundations  of  the  floor,  it  could  not  have  risen  much  above 
the  original  floor  level,  and  was  presumably  either  a  base  for  some  heavy  object  or  the  foundation 
of  a  brick  bin;  it  does  not  look  like  a  divan.  There  was  a  breach  at  the  west  end  of  the  north 
wall,  the  west  wall  itself  had  suffered  severely,  and  the  west  end  of  the  south  wall  had  been  razed 
down  to  the  stone  foundations;  at  the  east  end  of  the  room,  however,  a  large  part  of  the  vaulting 
was  intact.  Neither  this  nor  the  walls  seem  ever  to  have  been  whitewashed  or  even  rendered,  but 
are  quite  rough.  Besides  the  doorways  leading  into  rooms  4  and  6  there  was  a  window  at  the 
east  end  of  the  south  wall,  and  probably  there  had  been  another  in  the  west  end  of  the  same  wall 
where  it  was  broken  away;  the  window  was  3.50  m.  above  ground  level  and  measured  i.io  m.  by 
0.50  m.  In  the  south  wall  there  was  also  an  arched  niche  0.80  m.  high,  0.50  m.  wide  and  0.25.  m. 
deep,  1.40  m.  above  floor  level;  a  similar  arched  niche  was  in  the  middle  of  the  west  wall. 

In  the  east  wall,  3.15  m.  from  the  floor,  there  was  a  shallow  rectangular  recess  0.90  m.  high 
by  0.70  m.  wide  and  about  0.30  m.  deep,  which  looked  as  if  it  were  meant  to  take  a  stone  slab. 
It  was  surmounted  by  a  simple  cornice  of  mud  brick,  formed  of  two  courses,  the  lower  projecting 
0.05  m.  and  the  upper  o.io  m.  from  the  face  of  the  wall.  On  each  side  of  this,  in  the  angles  of 
the  room,  there  was  at  the  height  of  1.30  m.  from  floor  level  a  hole  0.20  m.  square,  driven  0.20  m. 
into  the  brickwork  of  the  east  wall,  clearly  meant  to  take  the  end  of  a  beam,  the  mark  of  which 
could  be  seen  on  the  face  of  the  north  wall,  running  out  for  a  distance  of  1.25  m.  As  the  room  was 
apparently  otherwise  roughly  finished,  and  (judging  from  the  jar-sealings  found  in  it)  used  as 
a  storeroom,  it  is  difficult  to  explain  these  features,  which  are  not  paralleled  in  any  other  room 
in  the  castle. 

The  room  measured  5.25  m.  by  3.50  m.  In  it  were  found  a  fragment  of  basket-work,  a 
rectangular  piece  of  mud  (broken)  marked  with  holes  like  a  tally,  a  flat,  roughly  circular  stone 
marked  with  holes  and  lines  (9129,  PI.  15),  and  six  large  mud  jar-sealings,  one  apparently 
bearing  a  trefoil  leaf,  one  obliterated  altogether,  one  with  a  snake  device  like  that  illustrated  in 
vol.  iii,  p.  79,  fig.  2,  and  three  others  shown  in  PI.  15. 

Room  6. 

Practically  the  whole  of  the  south  wall  was  destroyed  down  to  the  stone  foundations,  and  Room  6. 
even  of  these  two  or  three  blocks  had  been  displaced.  Presumably  there  had  been  a  window 
on  this  side.  There  were  three  doorways  in  the  room,  one  in  each  of  the  other  walls.  That 
into  room  5  had  been  breached  and  then  clumsily  patched  up  and  narrowed  by  the  squatters  of 
a  later  period  with  flimsy  jambs  of  broken  brick  and  plastered  mud ;  the  doorway  into  the  inner 
court,  which  had  also  suffered  severely,  was  completely  blocked  up  by  the  end  of  the  mud  bin  or 
granary  built  in  the  corner  of  the  courtyard  after  the  dismantling  of  the  fortress.  The  western 
doorway  was  the  only  one  left  open ;  one  wooden  jamb  had  been  let  into  the  south  outer  wall ;  the 
western  wall  was  too  much  destroyed  to  show  the  original  height  of  the  door,  nor  was  there  any 
trace  of  the  vault  remaining.  The  walls  had  been  mud-rendered,  but,  apparently,  never 
whitewashed.    No  objects  were  found  in  the  room.    The  room  measured  3.50  m.  by  4.20  m. 


18 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


Room  7. 

This  room  opened  out  of  the  last  and  gave  access  to  the  second  staircase ;  the  door  leading 
to  this,  at  the  north  end  of  the  west  wall,  had  been  much  damaged,  and  the  jambs  were  all  broken 
away.  The  north  wall  was  standing  between  two  and  three  metres  high,  but  had  been  partly 
undermined  just  above  floor  level ;  while  the  room  was  being  cleared  the  great  weight  of  the 
rubbish  behind  the  wall  (in  room  21)  thrust  it  forward  from  below,  displacing  it  by  about  i  .00  m. 
In  order  not  to  destroy  the  whole  of  this  wall,  which  remained  almost  in  position,  leaning  against 
the  rubbish,  room  21  was  not  cleared. 

In  the  south  wall  was  an  arched  niche  0.70  m.  high  by  0.50  m.  broad,  0.80  m.  above  the 
floor.  Just  east  of  this  the  wall  had  been  breached  down  to  floor  level,  and  beyond  the  gap 
stood  only  1.40  m.  high.  This  gap  came  just  where  the  window  must  have  been  (in  several 
outer  rooms  of  the  castle  the  wall  had  been  breached  in  downward  continuation  of  the  window- 
line)  and  looked  as  if  it  might  have  served  as  a  door  for  the  late  settlers  in  the  castle  ruins;  it 
formed,  however,  no  part  of  the  original  plan. 

The  room  measured  3.20  m.  by  3.20  m.  The  springers  of  the  vault,  distinguished  from  the 
wall  by  a  bevelled  offset,  were  2.55  m.  above  floor  level;  the  crown  of  the  arch  had  disappeared. 
Both  walls  and  ceiling  had  been  mud-rendered,  but  there  was  no  sign  of  their  having  been  white- 
washed. In  the  room  were  found  a  mud  jar-sealing  inscribed  lAAPHN  (the  first  two  letters 
were  rather  indistinct,  but  could  be  restored  from  the  other  example  found  in  room  9,  PI.  15), 
and  a  lotus  flower  roughly  cut  in  sandstone  and  forming  part  of  a  tracery  window. 

Room  8  (The  Second  Staircase). 

On  passing  through  the  doorway  from  room  7  the  stairs  faced  one ;  on  the  left  was  the  thin 
party  wall  that  shut  off  the  space  beneath  the  return  flights,  on  the  right  was  the  doorway  into 
room  9.  Owing  to  the  presence  of  this  doorway  there  were  only  two  steps  in  the  first  flight 
which,  together  with  the  whole  of  the  next  flight  on  the  west  side  of  the  central  pillar,  rested  on 
a  solid  base,  the  vaulting  system  being  first  employed  for  the  return  on  the  south  side.  In  the 
west  wall  was  a  window  placed  so  high  up  that  its  crown  cut  well  into  the  side  of  the  vault  above 
it:  this  window  was  of  the  false  arch  type;  another  window  on  the  south  side  lighted  the  next 
flight.  The  stair-chamber  measured  3.50  m.  by  3.05  m.  It  had  not  originally  been  intended  for 
a  staircase.  This  was  an  afterthought,  for  instead  of  the  vaults  that  supported  the  flights  being 
built  into  the  wall  during  the  process  of  its  construction,  as  was  the  case  in  the  main  staircase, 
ledges  to  take  the  springer-bricks  had  been  roughly  hacked  in  the  face  of  the  already  existing 
wall. 

A  breach  had  been  made  through  the  south  wall.  The  whole  staircase  was  in  a  far  more 
ruinous  condition  than  was  the  other;  the  central  pillar  stood  only  i.io  m.  high,  and  above  that 
height  only  the  ledges  hacked  in  the  walls  showed  where  the  vaulting  had  run. 

On  the  floor  was  found  a  fragment  of  floral  stone  tracery  from  a  window. 

Room  9. 

Entered  from  the  stairway.  The  door  in  the  north  wall  leading  to  room  10  had  been  narrowed 
in  the  period  of  squatter  occupation  by  a  thin  screen-wall  of  mud  (see  PI.  6).  The  west 
wall  had  a  window  close  up  to  the  northern  angle;  this  was  the  only  instance  of  an  outer  room 
in  which  the  main  wall  of  the  castle  had  not  been  breached.  The  staircase  door  had  been 
knocked  about  a  good  deal,  and  the  east  wall  had  been  largely  and  at  its  south  end  utterly 
destroyed.  Both  walls  and  ceiling  had  been  rendered  and  whitewashed;  the  springers  of  the 
vault  were  2.20  m.  and  the  crown  about  4.10  m.  above  floor  level.  The  floor  was  very  rough 
and  uneven,  the  mixture  of  mud  and  chopped  straw  overlying  the  original  surface  of  the  desert 


THE  CASTLE  RUINS 


19 


having  largely  disappeared,  and  being  partly  overlaid  by  the  refuse  collected  during  the  squatter  Room  p. 
period. 

The  room  measured  3.50  m.  by  3.70  m.  In  it  were  found  a  stone  grinder,  a  flat  worked 
stone  and  another  like  a  tally  or  game-board  (9128,  PI.  15),  an  iron-toothed  sickle  (9109,  PI.  15) 
exactly  like  the  modern  mugbds  or  mashil,  and  a  curved  knife-sheath  of  wood  covered  with 
leather,  also  two  plain  mud  jar-sealings,  one  inscribed  lAAPflN  (PI.  15)  and  one  bearing  a 
snake  sign  like  that  in  vol.  iii,  p.  79,  fig.  i ;  a  plain  cup  of  gray-black  ware  of  a  type  not  found 
in  the  cemetery  and  probably  later  in  date,  and  a  fragment  of  red  pottery  with  black  and  cream- 
coloured  paint  belonging  to  the  late  Blemyan  period. 

Room  10. 

The  room  had  had  three  doorways:  that  leading  from  9  had  been  narrowed  down,  as  Room  10. 
already  described,  by  the  stragglers  who  settled  in  the  ruined  building  and  patched  up  such 
parts  as  were  at  all  habitable ;  the  doorway  in  the  north  wall  leading  to  1 1  had  been  blocked  up 
altogether  by  the  same  hands;  only  the  door  into  20  remained  open  altogether.  The  west 
wall  had  been  breached  from  the  window  down  to  the  stone  foundations,  a  large  part  of  the 
east  wall  had  been  destroyed  and  the  doorway  in  it  broken  through.  The  vault  had  almost 
entirely  gone;  its  springers  were  1.15  m.  above  floor  level,  distinguished  from  the  wall- face  by 
a  bevelled  offset,  and  its  crown  was  4.15  m.  high.  Both  vault  and  walls  had  been  well  rendered 
and  whitewashed;  and  on  the  east  wall  there  could  be  distinguished  in  the  patches  of  whitewash 
that  remained  traces  of  grafhti  showing  a  horse,  a  running  camel,  and  a  few  marks  that  may  once 
have  been  Meroitic  characters  but  were  too  far  destroyed  to  be  legible.  The  late  patching  of 
the  doorways  was  not  whitewashed;  in  that  of  the  norch  door  was  built  in  part  of  a  lower 
grindstone.  The  floor  was  of  broken  bricks  and  mud  mixed  with  chopped  straw,  very  uneven 
and  probably  due  in  large  part  to  the  later  rather  than  to  the  original  occupants. 

The  room  measured  3.50  m.  by  3.70  m.    In  it  were  found  two  fragments  of  leather  from 
sandals,  a  bronze  knife-blade  (9104,  PI.  15),  and  a  lamp  of  the  covered  saucer  type. 

Room  10  A  (on  the  first  floor.) 

This  had  a  door  in  the  south  wall  over  that  in  the  lower  room,  and  apparently  one  at  the  Room  10  A. 
north  end  of  the  east  wall. 

Room  II. 

There  was  only  one  doorway  in  this  room,  that  leading  from  room  10,  which  had  been  Roo7n  11. 
blocked  up ;  but  in  the  east  wall  a  breach  had  been  effected  into  1 9  which  served  all  the  purposes 
of  a  door,  and  the  outer  western  wall  had  also  been  breached  down  to  the  stone  foundations. 
In  the  north  wall  was  an  arched  niche  0.70  m.  high,  1.25  m.  above  floor  level,  and  in  the  south 
wall,  1.05  m.  up,  was  a  similar  niche.  The  walls  were  roughly  plastered  with  mud  containing  a 
large  percentage  of  chopped  straw,  and  had  never  been  whitewashed.  The  vault  had  not  been 
plastered  otherwise  than  in  the  course  of  construction;  it  was  intact;  the  springers,  not 
distinguished  by  any  offset,  were  2.50  m.  and  the  crown  4.45  m.  above  the  stone  flags  that 
formed  the  foundation  of  the  floor.  The  floor  had  been  formed  of  a  layer  of  chopped  straw, 
ashes  and  mud  that  overlaid  the  stone  foundations  to  a  depth  of  perhaps  0.30  m.;  but  the 
surface  was  so  broken  that  accurate  measurements  were  not  possible. 

The  room  measured  3.60  m.  by  3.40  m.  In  it  were  found  two  flat  stone  grinders,  a  lower 
grinding-stone  and  part  of  a  second,  some  nuts  of  the  dom  palm,  fragments  of  rough  pottery, 
including  one  of  a  lamp  of  the  covered  saucer  type,  and  a  small  piece  of  papyrus,  found  on  the 
threshold  of  the  blocked-up  doorway. 


20 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


Room  12. 

The  only  doorway  was  in  the  east  wall  into  room  13.  There  had  been  two  windows,  one  in 
each  of  the  outer  walls,  but  both  of  these  had  been  breached  down  to  foundation  level.  In  the 
south  wall  there  was  a  niche  cut  into  the  face  of  the  wall,  and  in  the  east  wall  another,  0.55  m. 
high  and  1.25  m.  above  the  floor.  The  walls  and  vault  had  been  smoothly  plastered  with  mud 
and  whitewashed,  and  on  the  whitewash  were  scratched  a  fair  number  of  graffiti.  Owing  to  the 
decay  of  the  chopped  straw  in  the  plaster,  as  well  as  to  the  falling  away  of  large  pieces  of  the 
surface,  these  were  seldom  intelligible;  but  in  the  south  wall  could  be  distinguished  a  man  on 
horseback  attacking  a  camel,  a  crocodile,  a  jackal  and  a  ship.  The  room  measured  3.60  m. 
by  4.20  m. 

Room  13. 

In  the  north  side  were  two  windows  high  up  and  cutting  into  the  side  of  the  vaulting :  both 
had  been  breached  down  to  the  stone  foundations.  In  each  of  the  other  walls  was  a  doorway. 
That  on  the  west,  opening  out  of  room  12,  had  been  narrowed  slightly  by  the  late  settlers,  a 
column  of  poor  brickwork  being  built  up  against  the  north  jamb.  There  was  a  reveal  0.25  m. 
deep  and  0.15  m.  wide,  to  take  the  door;  there  was  no  sign  of  the  hinge-stone,  but  a  stone  slab 
was  built  into  the  south  jamb  just  below  the  spring  of  the  arch.  At  the  east  end  of  the  south 
wall  was  a  doorway  to  room  19:  the  jambs  and  reveals  had  been  broken  away,  but  the  arch 
remained;  further  along  the  same  wall  was  an  arched  niche  with  bevelled  reveal,  i.io  m.  above 
floor  level.  In  the  east  was  the  doorway  to  room  14.  The  walls,  like  the  vault,  had  been  mud- 
rendered  and  whitewashed;  of  the  whitewash  very  little  remained,  and  the  traces  which  it  bore 
of  graffiti  had  no  more  meaning.  The  vault,  distinguished  from  the  wall  by  a  bevelled  offset, 
had  its  springers  2.45  m.  and  its  crown  about  4.00  m.  above  floor  level;  it  was  all  broken  away, 
and  its  height  could  only  be  measured  from  the  marks  left  on  the  west  wall-face.  The  floor 
was  of  mud  laid  on  the  natural  stone,  and  but  little  of  it  remained. 

The  room  measured  4.75  m.  by  4.20  m.  In  it  were  found  a  string  of  five  small  blue  glass 
beads,  late;  a  piece  of  bent  iron,  apparently  a  hasp  (9107);  a  cow's  horn;  some  twisted  grass 
cord;  a  little  painted  pottery  of  Blemyan  type,  all  in  small  fragments;  and  part  of  a  leather 
sandal. 

Room  14. 

The  whole  of  the  north  and  the  northern  part  of  the  east  wall  were  utterly  destroyed. 
Probably  in  the  north  wall  there  had  been  two  windows,  as  in  room  13;  there  had  been  a 
doorway  leading  to  room  15  in  that  part  of  the  east  wall  which  had  been  broken  down.  In  the 
south  wall,  right  in  the  corner,  was  a  door  leading  to  room  17,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  wall  an 
arched  niche  with  bevelled  reveal  (see  PI.  7).  In  the  west  wall  was  the  doorway  to  room  13; 
this  had  a  deep  reveal  to  take  the  door;  the  threshold  was  in  position,  and  consisted  of  two 
rough  blocks  of  sandstone.  The  walls  and  vault  had  been  whitewashed,  but  little  of  this 
remained  and  there. were  no  distinguishable  graffiti.  The  vault  had  disappeared  altogether 
except  at  the  southwest  corner  where  a  few  of  the  springers  still  kept  their  position  at  a  height 
of  2.35  m.  from  the  floor.  The  floor  had  been  of  mud  laid  over  the  natural  rock,  but  most 
of  the  surface  had  perished. 

The  room  measured  4.25  m.  by  5.60  m.  In  it  were  found  a  lamp  of  the  covered  saucer 
type  and  a  plain  stone  conical  weight. 


THE  CASTLE  RUINS 


21 


Room  15. 

The  whole  of  the  north  and  east  walls  had  been  destroyed  down  to  the  foundation  stones,  Room  15. 
and  at  the  corner  even  these  had  been  overthrown :  a  large  part  of  the  south  wall  was  also  razed, 
but  enough  of  the  foundations  remained  to  show  that  a  doorway  leading  into  room  16  had  stood 
at  its  eastern  end;  the  north  end  of  the  west  wall  had  fallen,  and  so  only  the  southwest  corner 
of  the  room  survived  in  more  than  outline.  The  walls  and  vault  had  been  plastered  and 
whitewashed:  the  vault,  distinguished  from  the  wall-face  by  a  bevelled  offset,  had  its  springers 
2.65  m.  above  floor  level;  the  floor  had  been  of  mud  laid  over  the  natural  rock  but  its  surface 
had  almost  wholly  perished. 

The  room  measured  4.25  m.  by  6.60  m.  In  it  were  found  a  stone  weight  inscribed  on  two 
of  its  sides  ITEC  and  MIX  A  (9138),  and  two  fragments  (fitting  together)  of  gazelle-skin  leather 
inscribed  on  both  sides  with  Coptic  text;  these  latter  were  found  just  above  the  floor  level  about 
2.00  m.  from  the  east  and  i.oo  m.  from  the  north  wall  under  about  0.70  m.  of  rubbish  (see  p.  5). 

Room  16. 

The  north  and  east  walls  are  almost  entirely  destroyed  and  the  south  wall  is  badly  breached  Room  16. 
where  stood  the  doorway  into  room  i ,  while  its  eastern  end  has  fallen  altogether.  Presumably 
there  was  a  window  in  the  east  wall.  The  west  wall  has  a  breach  0.60  m.  wide  opening  into 
room  17  :  this  may  have  been  used  as  a  doorway  by  the  late  squatters,  but  was  not  such  originally. 
No  sign  of  whitewash  remained  upon  the  walls.  The  vault  springers  were  2.20  m.  above  floor 
level:  the  mud  surface  of  the  floor  had  almost  entirely  disappeared,  leaving  the  natural  rock 
exposed. 

The  room  measured  4.20  m.  by  3.20  m.    Nothing  was  found  in  it. 
Room  17. 

In  the  north  wall  was  a  doorway  leading  into  room  13.  This  was  the  only  door  and  the  Room  ly. 
room  therefore  corresponds  very  closely  to  room  4  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  passage-room  3: 
like  it,  it  was  not  lighted  by  any  window  and  was  approached  by  a  single  doorway  put  as  far  away 
as  possible  from  the  main  entrance  to  the  castle.  The  east  wall  was  breached  into  room  16,  and 
the  south  wall  into  room  3;  in  the  west  wall  was  an  arched  niche  0.65  m.  high  by  0.45  m.  by 
0.40  m.  deep,  i.iom.  above  the  floor.  The  walls  had  been  plastered  with  mud  but  not 
whitewashed.  The  greater  part  of  the  vault  was  intact,  only  the  east  end  of  it  having  collapsed: 
its  springers  were  2.55  m.  above  the  floor  level.  The  floor  was  of  mud  thinly  spread  over  the 
natural  rock,  and  was  fairly  well  preserved. 

The  room  measured  3.50  m.  by  3.45  m.  In  it  were  found  only  a  modern  adze  (turiya) 
head  and  a  leaden  toy  whistle  in  working  order,  also  modern,  and  a  United  States  two  cent 
postage  stamp. 

Room  18. 

This  was  the  best-preserved  room  in  the  castle.  It  was  entered  only  from  22,  the  light- well,  Room  18. 
by  a  door  which  was  blocked  up  by  the  late  bin  built  in  the  corner;  there  was  also  in  the  south 
wall  a  single  window  giving  on  the  light- well,  set  high  up,  like  the  ground-floor  windows  in  the 
outer  castle  walls,  so  that  its  crown  cut  into  the  side  of  the  ceiling- vault  and  the  space 
between  the  window  proper  and  the  extrados  of  the  ceiling  had  to  be  covered  in  by  a  short 
subsidiary  vault.  In  the  north  wall  towards  the  east  end  of  it  was  a  niche  roughly  hacked  out 
in  the  brickwork:  in  the  west  wall  was  built  an  arched  niche  0.60  m.  high  by  0.05  m.  by  0.40  m. 
deep,  1.25  m.  above  floor  level.    Along  the  north  and  south  walls,  at  a  height  of  2.60  m.  above 


22 


KAR.\NOG,  THE  TOWN 


the  floor,  let  into  the  first  sprmger-course  of  the  vault,  was  a  row  of  projecting  stones,  round-ended 
and  pierced  horizontally.  They  were  roughly  built  in,  so  that  the  line  made  by  the  holes  was 
none  too  true:  they  measured  about  0.13  m.  either  way  and  projected  about  o.iom.;  the  holes 
were  some  0.03  m.  in  diameter.  An  exact  parallel  to  these  stones  can  be  seen  in  some  modern 
Nubian  houses,  where  ropes  are  strung  from  one  to  another  across  the  room  and  from  the  ropes 
are  hung  baskets  or  pots  of  food,  vegetables,  etc.  In  the  modern  houses  these  rooms  are  the 
cooking-rooms,  and  it  is  not  unnatural  to  suppose  that  at  Karanog  also  this  room  may  have  been 
the  castle  kitchen. 

The  roof  was  intact  (except  for  a  small  hole  at  the  east  end),  and  had  its  springers  2.55  m. 
and  its  crown  4.00  m.  above  floor  level.  The  floor  had  been  of  mud  laid  over  the  natural  rock,  but 
very  little  of  its  surface  remained.  The  walls  had  been  very  roughly  plastered  with  mud  but 
never  whitewashed,  and  were  blackened  by  smoke.  It  is  noticeable  that,  though  the  doorway 
of  the  room  had  been  considerably  enlarged  by  the  fall  of  the  top  of  its  arch,  and  though  the 
collapse  of  the  high  walls  let  vastly  more  light  into  the  courtyard  or  light-well  than  can  have 
filtered  down  into  it  when  the  whole  building  stood  complete,  in  spite  of  the  hole  in  its  roof  the 
room  was  still  very  dark.  The  modern  Nubian  does  not  let  much  sunlight  into  his  house, 
but  the  ground-floor  chambers  of  the  ancient  castle,  if  we  may  judge  from  this  the  most  perfect 
example,  must  have  been  so  gloomy  that  we  cannot  but  assign  them  to  the  more  menial 
class  of  its  inhabitants,  reserving  for  the  better  sort  the  lighter  rooms  with  their  more  generous 
windows  of  the  upper  floor. 

The  room  measured  3.50  m.  by  5.00  m.    Nothing  was  found  in  it. 

Room  19. 

In  the  north  wall  there  was  at  its  western  end  a  doorway  opening  into  room  13 ;  part  of  it 
had  fallen.  In  the  east  wall,  which  originally  presented  no  special  features,  the  niche  in  room 
18  had  been  broken  through  and  formed  a  rough  hole.  In  the  south  wall  was  a  doorway  leading 
to  room  20:  the  wall  had  collapsed  with  the  fall  of  the  vault  and  stood  only  1.50  m.  high  (see  PI.  8, 
Fig.  a) ;  near  its  west  corner  was  a  niche  0.40  m.  wide  and  i.io  m.  above  floor  level.  The  west 
wall  had  been  breached  into  room  1 1 .  Both  wall  and  vault  had  been  smoothly  plastered  and 
whitewashed :  the  vault  had  fallen  in ;  its  springers,  distinguished  from  the  wall-face  by  a  bevelled 
offset  (seen  in  the  photograph)  were  2.45  m.  above  floor  level.  The  surface  of  the  mud  floor 
was  fairly  well  preserved  and  showed  that,  like  the  walls  and  ceiling,  it  had  originally  been 
whitewashed.  This  was  presumably  done  to  lighten  the  room,  which  must  have  been  somewhat 
dark  at  the  best  since  it  depended  altogether  on  secondary  light  and  got  even  this  only  through 
the  doorways — unless  indeed  the  apparent  niche  in  the  ruined  south  wall  was  really  a  narrow 
window  like  that  in  the  south  wall  of  room  i ;  but  even  so  its  narrowness,  and  its  distance  from 
the  light- well,  would  have  prevented  its  being  very  effective.  This  whitewashing  of  the  floors 
(cf.  room  20)  is  an  unexpected  feature  and  one  not  paralleled  by  modern  Nubian  houses: 
certainly  the  room  cannot  have  been  used  as  a  storeroom  when  such  pains  were  taken  to  make 
it  habitable,  and  one  would  be  inclined  to  refer  it,  together  with  room  20,  to  the  female 
slaves  of  the  establishment  who  lived  on  the  ground  floor  but  in  its  more  private  and 
sequestered  rooms. 

The  room  measured  3.50  m.  by  3.40  m.  In  it  were  found  a  mud  jar-sealing  with  cross  design 
similar  to  one  from  room  3  (see  PI.  15),  a  small  wooden  handle,  perhaps  for  a  stiletto,  length 
0.085  ni-,  a  stone  playing-board  or  tally  (9127,  PI.  15),  part  of  a  small  lozenge-shaped  stone  trough, 
some  pottery  of  the  characteristic  painted  Blemyan  types  and  one  white  and  red  fragment  to 
be  assigned  rather  to  the  Coptic  period,  and  part  of  a  red  pebble-burnished  wheelmade  pot  of 
indefinite  type. 


THE  CASTLE  RUINS 


23 


Room  20. 

In  the  north  wall  was  the  doorway  to  room  19  already  described,  and  there  may  have  been  Room  20. 
a  window  towards  its  western  end.  In  the  east  wall  was  a  window  opening  on  the  light-well: 
the  soffit  of  its  arch  was  3.80  m.  above  floor  level;  below  it  the  wall  was  breached  down  to  the 
ground.  The  south  wall  had  been  breached  at  its  east  end  through  into  room  21,  but  there 
had  been  no  door  here  originally;  in  the  west  wall  was  a  door  leading  into  room  10.  The 
walls  and  vault  had  been  smoothly  mud-rendered  and  whitewashed:  of  the  vault  nothing 
remained  except  a  few  of  its  springers  2.45  m.  from  the  ground  and  the  imprint  of  its  curve  on 
the  wall  where  the  crown  reached  a  height  of  4.20  m.  As  in  room  19  the  floor  had 
been  whitewashed  and  a  good  deal  of  its  original  surface  remained  (see  PI.  8  a). 

The  room  measured  3.40  m.  by  3.60  m.     In  it  were  found  a  fragment  of  gazelle-skin  leather, 
uninscribed,  a  wooden  spindle-whorl,  and  part  of  the  rind  of  a  large  melon. 

Room  21. 

This  was  not  excavated  (see  on  room  7).  Room  21. 

Room  22  (The  Light-well  or  Courtyard). 

This  was  an  open  courtyard,  occupying  the  area  of  two  rooms  and  therefore  disturbing  the  Room  22. 
symmetry  of  the  castle  plan,  inasmuch  as  there  were  two  sets  of  rooms  on  three  of  its  sides  but 
on  the  fourth,  the  south  side,  only  a  single  room  between  it  and  the  outer  wall  of  the  castle.  The 
rooms  of  the  inner  series  had  for  the  most  part  windows  opening  onto  this  open  space,  and  so 
while  on  the  ground  level  it  was  used  as  the  courtyard  of  the  palace  and  doubtless  was  the 
scene  of  its  busiest  life,  it  served  also  as  a  light-well  for  the  surrounding  chambers  that  could 
not  be  lighted  from  the  outside. 

The  floor  was  of  beaten  mud,  as  rough  as  that  of  the  court  of  a  modern  Nubian  house.  In 
the  northwest  corner  was  a  brick  circle  about  1.60  m.  in  diameter;  the  marks  on  the  wall  showed 
that  it  had  had  a  conical  or  beehive  shape  some  2.20  m.  high;  above  this  height  the  brickwork 
of  the  wall  was  deeply  blackened  by  smoke.  It  is  probable  that  this  furnace  belongs  to  the 
genuine  castle  period;  the  fact  that  it  is  on  the  original  ground  level  need  not  count  for  much 
or  for  anything  but  its  position  near  the  "kitchen"  (room  18),  the  absence  of  ovens  in  any  of 
the  rooms,  and  the  probability  that  the  original  inhabitants  did  have  ovens  and  would  put  them 
in  the  courtyard  rather  than  in  any  of  the  ill- ventilated  chambers,  are  all  in  favour  of  this 
belonging  to  the  proper  castle  plan.  In  the  southeast  corner  the  presence  of  similar  blackening 
upon  the  walls  (though  there  are  no  definite  traces  of  brickwork)  may  be  evidence  for  another 
oven  opposite  to  the  first. 

In  the  northeast  corner  and  in  the  southwest  we  have  to  deal  with  structures  of  a  very 
different  date.  Just  in  front  of  the  door  of  room  18  a  shallow  rectangular  pit  had  been  dug 
below  the  original  floor  level  and  round  three  of  its  sides  (the  fourth  being  flush  with  the  east 
wall  of  the  court)  had  been  built  thin  flimsy  walls  of  broken  brick  and  plastered  mud  similar 
in  character  to  that  which  partially  blocks  the  doorway  between  rooms  9  and  10  (see  PI.  6). 
The  north  wall  of  this  bin  or  granary  ran  along  the  threshold  of  the  door  and  completely  blocked 
the  entrance  to  room  18;  a  ledge  roughly  cut  in  the  east  wall  to  take  the  edge  of  a  wooden  lid 
over  the  bin  showed  that  its  original  height  was  1.15  m.  It  is  likely  that  when  the  bin  was 
made  the  floor  level  had  already  risen  a  good  deal  above  the  original,  and  that  only  a  certain 
proportion  of  the  bin-wall  stood  above  the  surface.  A  very  similar  erection  in  the  southwest 
comer  blocked  the  entrance  to  room  6;  it  was,  if  anything,  of  even  rougher  construction.  On 
the  question  of  date  it  is  worth  noticing  that  both  these  bins  stood  to  a  considerably  higher  level 
than  the  much  better  built  oven. 


24 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


Room  22.  In  the  north  wall  (see  PI.  8  b)  was  the  pointed-topped  window  of  room  i8,  3.20  m.  from  the 
ground,  measuring  in  extreme  height  0.95  m.  Above  this  was  the  arched  first-floor  window, 
5.30  m.  above  ground,  1.20  m.  high.  At  8.20  m.  were  two  narrow  flat-topped  windows  only 
0.20  m.  wide  and  0.60  m.  high;  above  these  the  wall  was  broken  away.  Along  the  face  of  the 
north  wall,  4.10  m.  from  the  ground,  were  seven  double  holes  let  into  the  brickwork;  they  were 
0.25  m.  deep,  the  upper  holes  were  some  0.30  m.  square  and  the  lower  holes  0.20  m.  high  by 
0.30  m  (see  PI.  8,  Fig.  a  and  the  section  on  PI.  23) ;  they  seem  to  have  been  meant  to  take  beam-ends. 
Similar  holes  ran  along  the  face  of  the  west  wall  at  a  height  (measuring  to  the  top  of  the  holes) 
of  6.75  m. ;  there  were  four  between  the  north  angle  and  the  window  and  one  south  of  the  window. 
At  this  level  there  ran  along  the  north  wall-face  a  slight  indented  line  cutting  across  the  top  of 
the  window-arch ;  it  looked  as  if  here  the  edge  of  a  heavy  plank  had  been  partially  let  into  the 
wall;  on  the  west  wall  a  similar  ridge  occurred  at  the  level  of  the  beam-holes  in  the  north  wall, 
and  here  too  were  two  beam-holes  4.35  m.  and  4.95  m.  from  the  north  corner.  On  the  north  wall 
the  two  levels  were  connected  by  a  line  of  small  holes  slanting  up  and  suggesting  a  ladder.  On 
the  other  walls  there  were  no  such  marks  to  be  seen. 

The  natural  explanation  of  these  holes  and  ledges  is  that  there  was  a  double  balcony  or 
platform  covering  the  northern  half  of  the  courtyard  for  some  5.00  m.  and  extending  right 
across  it  from  east  to  west;  the  beam-holes  represent  the  platform  supports,  the  ledges  the 
plank  floor,  and  the  two  are  connected  by  a  ladder;  the  wooden  uprights  that  supported  the 
southern  ends  of  the  beams  have  naturally  disappeared.  As  against  this  view  it  must  be  urged 
that  the  position  of  these  two  balconies,  having  no  connection  with  the  upper  rooms  of  the 
castle,  the  upper  one  of  which  is  at  a  totally  different  level,  and  so  placed  as  effectually  to  cut 
off  all  light  from  the  already  gloomy  rooms  3,  18,  19,  20,  as  well  as  from  the  more  important 
first-floor  rooms  above  these,  would  quite  stultify  the  architect  of  the  building:  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  imagine  a  permanent  structure  of  this  sort.  Of  course  it  may  have  stood  so;  or 
there  may  have  been  a  regularly  recurring  need  for  such  a  structure  whose  skeleton  would  be 
permanently  installed,  whereas  the  plank  flooring  might  only  have  been  laid  down  as  occasion 
demanded;  e.  g.,  it  is  possible  that  the  walls  of  the  courtyard  were  whitewashed;  there  is  no 
evidence  at  all  for  this,  but  from  room-walls  equally  exposed  the  mud  plastering  and  whitewash 
found  on  sheltered  faces  have  peeled  away  quite  as  thoroughly  and  leave  a  surface  as  little 
indicative  of  its  former  condition  as  the  walls  of  the  courtyard.  If  in  order  to  give  sorely  needed 
light  to  the  inner  rooms  the  walls  of  the  light-well  received  an  occasional  coat  of  white,  it  is  just 
possible  that  the  scaffolding  might  have  stood  permanently  in  position,  or  at  any  rate  that  the 
holes  by  which  it  was  supported  were  left  open  in  the  wall-face  for  use  on  each  recurring  spring 
cleaning.  It  is  almost  certain  that  the  structure,  whatever  it  was,  belongs  to  the  original 
occupation  of  the  castle,  for  though  the  later  squatters  did  occupy  at  least  one  room  of  the 
upper  storey  (that  above  18),  yet  the  erection  of  so  big  and  elaborate  a  thing  as  this  is  quite  out 
of  keeping  with  the  slipshod,  flimsy  character  of  their  general  patchwork;  they  would  be  far 
more  likely  to  have  put  up  a  wooden  roof,  if  anywhere,  over  one  of  the  less  ruined  rooms  whose 
smaller  span  would  have  rendered  the  task  less  ambitious  and,  by  doing  away  with  the  need 
for  wooden  uprights,  less  costly. 

The  east  wall  of  the  court  is  much  ruined  and  only  the  ground-floor  doorway  of  room  3 
can  be  traced.  On  this  floor  there  were,  as  we  have  seen,  no  windows,  for  room  3,  as  being  little 
more  than  a  passage,  required  but  little  light,  and  room  4,  as  a  storeroom,  none  at  all.  Presumably 
the  upper  rooms  were  lighted  by  windows  similar  to  those  on  the  north  and  west  sides.  On  the 
south  there  were  no  windows  at  all,  since  here  there  was  only  a  single  set  of  rooms,  and  these 
all  got  their  light  through  the  outer  main  wall  of  the  castle;  the  doorway  into  room  6  was  the 
only  feature.  A  breach  had  been  knocked  through  into  the  corner  of  room  5.  On  the  west 
side  there  was  at  the  south  end  a  doorway  into  room  21,  and  this  room  had  presumably  had  a 


THE  CASTLE  RUINS 


25 


window  onto  the  court  corresponding  to  that  of  room  20,  but  the  wall  was  broken  away  below  Room  22. 

its  level.    The  window  of  the  ground-floor  room  20  had  been  breached  down  to  the  ground; 

it  was  a  round-topped  window  and  curious  constructionally,  being  a  combination  of  a  true 

arch  on  the  outside,  with  a  skew  vault  in  the  thickness  of  the  wall  (see  p.  13).    Above  this  was 

an  arched  window  formed  of  a  double  row  of  six  vaulting  bricks  laid  flat  as  headers  in  the  upper 

row,  and  on  edge  in  the  lower;  immediately  above  this  at  a  height  of  8.65  m.  from  the 

ground  was  another  window  probably  of  the  same  size,  but  altogether  ruined. 

The  courtyard  measured  7.90  m.  by  4.90  m.  In  it  were  found  three  large  stone  troughs 
(two  of  them  had  holes  worn  through  the  bottom),  a  stone  impost  with  socket  for  door-jamb 
and  hole  for  hinge,  a  fragment  from  a  stone  tracery  window,  a  clay  lamp  of  the  covered  saucer 
type  and  another  of  the  long-nozzled  type  resembling  Byzantine  lamps,  a  fair  number  of 
fragments  of  characteristic  painted  Blemyan  pottery,  mostly  from  large  vessels,  a  kohlpot  of 
lacquered  wood  in  black,  yellow  and  red  (91 10,  PI.  15),  a  fragment  of  Arabic  MSS.  on  parchment, 
a  fragment  from  a  printed  copy  of  the  Koran,  and  a  fragment  from  a  Yorkshire  newspaper 
of  1878. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  HOUSE  RUINS 
House  i 

House  I.  The  house  was  surrounded  by  a  large  quadrilateral  enclosure  measuring  some  50.00  m. 

by  40.00  m.  The  wall  that  enclosed  it  was  of  mud  brick,  usually  upon  rough  stone  foundations; 
it  had  been  much  ruined,  and  the  whole  of  the  southeast  corner  had  wholly  disappeared.  On 
the  west  side  some  rough  and  rather  slightly  built  walls  had  been  built  between  the  outer  or 
courtyard  wall  and  that  of  the  house,  forming  a  small  enclosure  and  a  long  narrow  passage 
which,  though  apparently  blocked  at  the  end,  may  have  served  as  an  approach  to  the  house. 

The  house  itself  stood  on  sloping  ground,  the  rooms  along  the  east  upon  the  lowest  level 
from  which  the  other  floor  levels  rose  in  a  series  of  steps.  The  building  was  much  ruined;  the 
walls  in  many  cases  were  destroyed  down  to  the  level  of  the  floors,  and  seldom  stood  more 
than  about  0.60  m.  above  them.  Along  the  east  side,  the  outer  wall  of  the  house  was  built  on 
rough  stone  foundations,  which  at  the  northeast  corner  projected  so  as  to  thicken  the  walls 
by  0.25  m. 

Room  I.  The  walls  had  been  destroyed  to  too  low  a  level  to  show  any  traces  of  doorways. 
It  had  a  mud  floor. 

Room  2  had  a  mud  floor  at  a  somewhat  higher  level ;  in  this  room  were  found  four  sherds 
of  characteristic  painted  Blemyan  pottery  and  a  small  fragment  of  a  stone  window- frame :  the 
walls  were  in  places  0.75  m.  high. 

Room  3  showed  no  traces  of  any  floor;  from  just  outside  its  south  wall  came  one  blue  glass 
spheroid  and  one  carnelian  facetted  lentoid  bead. 

Room  4  had  no  doorway;  the  floor  was  of  mud  laid  over  rough  stone  slabs,  and  was  0.50  m. 
higher  than  that  of  room  i . 

Room  5  had  no  floor;  the  walls  stood  0.40  m.  high. 

Room  6  was  clearly  an  open,  unroofed  court.  Along  the  north  side  are  the  remains  of  an 
out-of-door  staircase;  the  first  step  was  solid,  it  stood  against  the  west  wall  and  was  0.30  m. 
high;  the  two  blocks  against  the  north  wall  (0.30  m.  high)  had  supported  a  barrel-vault  of 
mud  brick,  over  which  the  steps  had  run.  In  the  south  wall  was  a  doorway  leading  into  room  7, 
and  in  the  west  wall  another  doorway  leading  into  room  9.  There  Avere  found  in  the  room 
fragments  of  a  cup  of  black  incised  ware  and  of  a  small  alabaster  kohlpot  with  very  thin  walls. 

Room  7  was  long  and  narrow.  The  wall,  especially  on  the  south  side,  was  much  destroyed; 
in  the  southwest  comer  was  a  block  of  masonry  measuring  0.40  m.  by  0.25  m.,  and  in  the 
same  wall,  1.60  m.  from  the  west  corner,  were  built  in  two  rough  flat  stones,  one  of  which 
projected  0.30  m.  from  the  wall-face;  it  is  very  probable  that  the  main  doorway  into  the  house 
was  here  and  that  the  corner  block  served  as  a  doorstep. 

Room  8  had  doorways  in  the  south  wall  into  room  9  and  in  the  west  wall  into  room  1 1 ; 
the  walls  stood  about  0.60  m.  high.  A  good  many  fragments  of  pottery  were  found  in  the 
room,  including  some  of  F  xlviii  from  a  cup  resembling  in  decoration  8723  (vol.  iv,  PI.  92),  F  Ixii 
in  lightly  burnished  red  wheelmade  ware,  and  rough  handmade  hearth-burned  pottery. 

Room  9  had  doorways  in  the  north,  east  and  south  walls,  the  last  being  to  the  staircase; 
in  the  west  wall  there  had  been  a  doorway  into  room  1 2 ,  but  this  had  subsequently  been  walled 

(26) 


THE  HOUSE  RUINS 


27 


up.  The  walls  were  about  0.50  m.  high.  A  small  fragment  of  blue  glaze  ware  and  two  of  House  i. 
simply  painted  pottery  were  found  in  the  room. 

Room  10.  The  staircase.  On  passing  through  the  door  that  led  from  room  9,  you  turned 
to  the  left  to  ascend  the  first  flight.  This  was  solid.  With  the  first  turn  to  the  right  the  steps 
were  supported  on  brick  vaults,  but  as  the  walls  and  the  central  pillar  stood  only  0.60  m  high, 
and  the  first  flight  of  the  stairs  had  reached  a  point  higher  than  this,  there  was  no  trace  of  such 
vaulting  left.  The  pillar  measured  2.30  m.  by  0.60  m.  Behind  it,  on  the  south,  east  and  west 
sides  was  a  vacant  space  under  the  stairs,  probably  used  as  a  cupboard;  it  was  shut  in 
at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  by  a  very  thin  curtain- wall .  There  were  found  in  this  stair-chamber 
fragments  of  pottery  F  xlvi  with  "columbine"  pattern  in  black,  red  and  purple,  on  a  light 
ground,  F  xlviii,  and  several  other  painted  pieces. 

Room  II.  The  mud  floor  was  0.30  m.  above  that  of  room  8.  The  inner  walls  had  been 
destroyed  down  to  floor  level,  and  there  was  no  trace  of  any  doorway.  In  the  southwest 
corner  was  a  brick  base,  not  much  above  the  floor,  presumably  intended  to  support  some 
weight.  One  painted  fragment  and  some  pieces  of  coarse,  handmade  pottery  were  found  in 
the  room. 

Room  12.  In  the  east  wall  was  a  doorway  leading  into  room  8.  To  the  south  of  this 
there  had  been  a  doorway  into  room  9.  This  had  later  been  blocked  up  with  a  thin  rough  wall 
of  mixed  stones  and  bricks,  leaving  a  recess  in  the  wall-face;  a  quarter-column  of  brick  stood 
by  the  south  jamb,  and  beyond  this  there  seems  to  have  been  raised  brickwork,  like  a  divan, 
reaching  to  the  southeast  corner  of  the  room.  Along  the  south  a  wall  had  been  built  in  the 
room  parallel  to  and  0.40  m.  from  the  main  wall  of  the  house.  To  this  space  there  was  no  visible 
inlet,  but  its  walls  were  strongly  coloured  by  fire,  and  it  seems  to  have  been  a  sort  of  furnace. 
A  few  fragments  of  pottery,  including  painted  pieces  of  shapes  F  xlviii  and  F  Hi  and  of  a  late  (?) 
reddish-yellow  bowl  F  Ixxxi,  were  found  here;  in  the  room  itself  were  fragments  of  F  v  painted 
with  figures  of  leopards  in  black  and  white  on  a  red  ground,  of  a  heavily  ribbed  pot  of  doubtful 
shape,  of  the  hard  white-faced  ware,  classed  by  us  in  our  Areika  volume,  p.  36,  as  g,  and 
other  less  distinctive  wares.  In  the  northwest  comer  of  the  room  a  line  of  bricks  ran 
diagonally  from  wall  to  wall;  it  may  have  been  a  bin,  but  its  meaning  is  not  obvious. 
Outside  the  south  wall  was  found  a  lotus-flower  carved  in  sandstone,  part  of  a  tracery 
window  (9133,  PI.  17). 

Though  the  area  covered  by  the  courtyard  is  considerable,  the  house  itself  is  not  large. 
The  style  of  brickwork  shows  clearly  that  it  is  of  early  date,  and  this  is  borne  out  by  the  character 
of  the  bulk  of  pottery  fragments  found  within  it ;  the  slight  alteration  consisting  in  the  walling-up 
of  the  doorway  between  rooms  9  and  12,  though  the  walling  itself  is  of  careless  and  late  type, 
does  not  necessarily  bring  even  the  period  during  which  the  house  was  occupied  down  very  late 
in  the  history  of  the  town. 

The  ground  plan  of  the  house,  with  its  open  courtyard  surrounded  by  one  or  two  rows  of 
rooms,  and  with  its  winding  staircase  on  one  side  of  the  (presumed)  entrance,  is  not  unlike 
that  of  the  castle,  but  the  resemblance  between  the  buildings  was  probably  not  so  great  as 
appears.  Rooms  4  and  5  were  certainly  mere  magazines,  vaulted  (as  the  thickness  of  their  walls 
would  imply)  and  entered  by  doorways  in  the  southern  walls  set  some  distance  from  the  ground, 
and  only  reached  by  the  open-air  staircase.  It  is  very  likely  that  the  same  is  true  of  rooms 
I,  2  and  3.  The  number  of  living-rooms  on  the  ground  floor  would  therefore  be  reduced  to 
five,  counting  in  the  narrow  entrance-chamber,  room  7.  Since  the  outer  walls  are  of  uniform 
thickness  throughout  the  building,  it  may  be  that  the  second-storey  rooms  extended  over  the 
whole;  but  as  the  walls  are  only  0.80  m.  thick,  it  is  improbable  that  there  was  ever  a  third 
storey. 


28 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


House  2  (see  PI.  9). 

House  2.  The  house  stood  on  the  highest  point  of  a  low  tongue  of  rock  that  runs  out  from  the  edge 

of  the  sandstone  desert,  and  is  separated  by  a  little  sandy  valley  from  the  similar  spur  on  which 
the  castle  stood.  Being  thus  exposed,  the  house  has  suffered  severely;  the  walls  are  highest 
in  the  centre  of  the  site,  where  they  stand  about  one  metre  above  floor  level,  but  the  outer  walls 
are  still  more  ruined,  and  the  rooms  to  the  east  and  southeast  could  only  be  measured  by  the 
remains  of  the  floor  surface.  The  outer  wall  was  of  mud  brick  upon  heavy  foundations  of 
pick-dressed  sandstone  blocks  resembling  those  of  the  castle ;  the  inner  walls  were  for  the  most 
part  of  brick  only.  The  area  covered  by  the  building  is  actually  greater  than  that  of  the  castle, 
being  50.00  m.  by  60.00  m.,  but  its  ruinous  condition  makes  its  less  striking. 

Rooms  I  and  19  were  built  out  against  the  main  wall  of  the  house;  they  were  of  flimsy 
construction  and  had  been  much  ruined.  Between  them  lay  a  large  square  slab  of  sandstone, 
which  may  have  been  a  threshold,  for  apparently  there  was  here  a  door  in  the  main  west  wall 
giving  access  to  room  20.    The  two  rooms  would  suggest  porters'  lodges. 

Room  2  had  a  doorway  giving  on  room  20;  it  was  too  much  ruined  to  present  any  features 
of  interest. 

Rooms  3  and  4  were  small  magazines  communicating  one  with  another  by  a  narrow  doorway 
in  their  party  wall.  Access  to  them  must  have  been  gained  by  doors  in  their  northern  walls 
set  at  some  distance  above  the  ground,  and  reached  by  the  open-air  staircase  in  the  courtyard  (21). 

Room  5  was  approached  only  from  the  courtyard  (21);  in  it  were  found  a  great  many 
fragments  of  pottery  of  all  types,  and  several  ostraka  (Pll.  18,  Fig.  i;  and  20,  Fig.  4). 

Room  6  was  a  long  and  narrow  room  with  a  gap  at  the  east  end  of  its  south  wall  (the  outer 
wall  of  the  house) ,  which  seemed  to  have  been  an  original  doorway ;  on  the  west  was  the  staircase 
(7),  and  on  the  north  a  narrow  door  into  room  23.  The  room  contained  a  good  many  pottery 
fragments  and,  by  the  south  door,  a  number  of  pear-shaped  blocks  of  crude  mud,  smoothed 
carefully  and  with  a  hole  bored  through  the  small  end.    The  use  of  these  objects  is  uncertain. 

Room  7.  The  staircase  was  much  ruined.  The  edge  of  the  first  step  had  apparently 
been  flush  with  the  jamb  of  the  door  leading  from  room  6,  and  the  second  flight  had  rested  on 
a  solid  foundation.  Instead  of  a  real  central  pillar  there  was  only  a  thin  wall,  just  enough  to 
support  the  vaults  of  the  stair- flights,  which,  in  the  confined  space  of  the  chamber,  must  have 
been  unusually  short. 

Rooms  8  to  13  were  a  series  of  small  magazines,  the  doors  of  which  had  been  above  the 
level  to  which  the  walls  are  now  standing;  they  presented  therefore  few  individual  features  of 
interest.  In  8  there  was  a  raised  base  probably  intended  for  some  heavy  object;  at  the  east 
end  of  10  there  was  a  rectangular  chest  or  bin  of  crude  mud;  in  11  were  found  fragments  of 
a  painted  clay  doll  of  very  rude  style;  12  was  littered  with  remains  of  durra  and  other  grains, 
and  there  was  also  found  in  it  an  ostrakon  (PI.  18,  Fig.  2) ;  the  south  end  of  13  was  partitioned 
off  as  if  for  a  granary  by  a  slight  wall  of  mixed  brick  and  stone. 

Room  14  had  a  doorway  in  the  east  wall  leading  to  14  and  another  in  the  south  wall  leading 
to  24.  Against  the  middle  of  the  west  wall  was  a  small  mud  erection  semi-circular  in  plan, 
oval  in  form,  and  divided  down  the  middle  into  two  parts;  just  opposite  to  it,  against  the  west 
wall,  there  was  a  large  jar  buried  in  the  ground  for  half  its  height.  The  mud  erection  resembles 
the  nest  or  coop  used  by  the  modern  peasant  for  rearing  young  pigeons,  and  as  in  the  modern 
house  the  coop  is  usually  flanked  by  a  water-jar,  it  is  probable  that  this  was  also  the  purpose  in 
the  ancient  example.    On  the  west  wall  lay  an  unfinished  stone  offering-table. 

Room  15  communicated  with  room  14  on  the  west  and  with  room  16  on  the  east.  The 
western  doorway  seems  to  have  been  blocked  up  by  a  late  bin  of  flimsy  construction  (c/.  room  24), 
and  such  a  sign  of  subsequent  occupation,  or  at  all  events  of  a  change  in  the  house-plan,  is 


THE  HOUSE  RUINS 


29 


confirmed  by  the  fact  that  in  this  room  there  are  two  different  floor  levels  separated  from  one  House  2. 
another  by  a  thick  stratum  of  burnt  ashes. 

Room  16  was  much  ruined.  It  had  doorways  on  the  west  side  into  15,  on  the  south  into 
27,  and  on  the  east,  where  both  the  party  wall  and  the  outer  house-wall  were  destroyed  down 
to  floor  level,  there  may  well  have  been  a  third  doorway  into  room  17.  In  the  southwest  corner 
was  a  small  double  bin,  or  perhaps  a  hearth,  of  crude  mud.  In  the  room  was  found  a  rudely 
carved  stone  Ba-statuette  (9137). 

Room  17  was  almost  entirely  ruined  away.  A  true  end  to  the  south  wall  suggested  a 
doorway,  of  which  the  western  jamb  had  disappeared.  In  the  southeast  corner  there  was  no 
trace  of  the  outer  house- wall,  but  the  south  wall  had  been  recessed  back,  and  within  the  recess 
stood  a  large  upright  stone  slab  with  a  worked  face  to  the  north :  between  it  and  the  brickwork 
was  a  narrow  space  measuring  1.20  m.  by  0.40  m.,  perhaps  for  a  wooden  upright.  There  may 
therefore  have  been  a  large  gateway  in  the  east  wall  at  this  point. 

Room  18  was  much  ruined.    It  had  a  doorway  into  26,  but  presented  no  other  features 
calling  for  remark. 

Room  20  appears  to  have  been  the  entrance-hall  of  the  house,  from  which  access  was  given 
to  the  courtyard  (21).    In  it  was  found  a  round  terra-cotta  lamp. 

Room  21  was  clearly  an  open  courtyard.  As  one  entered  it  from  20  there  was  directly 
upon  the  left  a  broad  stone  staircase  which  (supported  after  the  first  two  or  three  steps  upon  a 
vault  of  mud  brick)  ran  round  the  east  and  south  sides  of  the  court  and  gave  access  in  the  first 
place  to  the  magazines  3  and  4,  and  subsequently  to  the  roof,  or  to  the  first-storey  rooms  of  this 
part  of  the  house,  if  such  existed.  Two  of  the  stone  steps  remain  in  situ;  they  measure  i.io  m. 
by  0.30  m.,  are  0.25  m.  high  and  run  without  any  balustrade  right  up  flush  with  the  face  of  the 
supporting  wall.  In  the  space  below  the  stairs  were  found  ostraka  (Pll.  19,  Fig.  3;  20,  Fig.  2). 
Opening  out  of  the  courtyard  were  other  doorways  on  the  north  side  into  room  25,  on  the  south 
into  5,  and  on  the  west  into  22. 

Room  22  was  divided  up  by  brick  partitions  into  bins  or  granaries;  across  the  door  was  a 
block  of  masonry  0.50  m.  high,  clearly  intended  to  prevent  the  contents  of  the  room  pouring 
out  when  the  door  was  opened.  It  was  impossible  to  say  whether  or  no  these  partitions 
belonged  to  the  original  house-plan:  they  were  not  bonded  into  the  walls,  but  that  is  no  argument 
for  either  view,  and  on  points  of  building  style  these  screen  walls  are  not  always  to  be  judged 
by  analogy  with  construction  walls. 

Room  23  had  doorways  into  room  6  on  the  south  side  and  into  24  on  the  north.  There 
was  a  large  bin  of  crude  mud  and  mud  brick  built  against  the  north  wall. 

Room  24  communicated  with  rooms  23  and  14,  but  the  door  leading  into  the  latter  seems 
to  have  been  blocked  at  a  later  date  by  a  slightly  built  granary  running  right  across  it. 

Room  25  showed  strong  marks  of  burning  in  the  southwest  corner. 

Room  26,  communicating  with  18  and  21,  was  too  much  ruined  away  to  present  any  features 
of  interest,  and  the  case  was  the  same  with  the  large  room  27. 

The  house  was  of  typically  early  style :  the  stone  foundations  of  the  outer  walls  are  paralleled 
by  the  best  examples  of  Blemyan  work  in  the  castle,  in  the  Anibeh  graves,  at  Sheikh  Daoud,  Kasr 
Ibrim  and  other  sites;  the  brickwork  was  good,  of  large  bricks,  well  and  regularly  laid;  the 
walls  were,  except  in  the  small  western  magazines,  smoothly  plastered  and  whitewashed.  The 
plan  of  the  building,  however,  differs  very  materially  from  that  of  the  castle.  The  house  is 
divided  into  two  distinct  parts,  the  eastern  and  the  western,  and  these  communicate  with  each 
other  only  by  one  doorway  (that  between  rooms  15  and  16),  placed  as  far  as  possible  from  the 
two  known  entrances  in  rooms  6  and  20.  A  large  part  of  the  ground  floor  was  given  over  to 
small  magazines  that  have  no  parallel  in  the  castle.  The  lines  of  the  cross- walls  also  are  much 
less  regular  than  in  the  castle;  probably  the  walls  that  divide  the  smaller  magazines  were  not 


30 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


House  2.  in  all  cases  carried  through  to  the  upper  storey,  where  certain  rooms  may  well  have  been  larger 
and  the  plan  more  simple:  thus,  rooms  3  and  4,  8  and  9,  10  and  11,12  and  13,  probably  formed 
but  four  rooms  on  the  first  floor.  It  would  also  appear  likely  that  room  26  was  not  carried  up 
to  first-floor  level,  since  otherwise  there  would  have  been  no  means  of  lighting  directly  the  room 
over  27,  and  the  same  must  have  been  true  of  rooms  22  and  25  (unless  indeed  23  served  as  a 
light- well  to  the  western  section  of  the  house),  so  that  from  first-floor  level  up  the  light- well 
area  would  have  been  the  whole  square  formed  by  rooms  21,  22,  25  and  26,  in  which  case  the 
ground  plan  of  the  house  is  less  abnormal  than  at  first  appears.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  room  23 
was  really  a  light- well,  the  division  of  the  house  into  two  practically  independent  parts  would 
be  more  marked  than  ever.  It  is  fairly  clear  that  the  open-air  staircase  in  21  would  not  reach 
higher  than  to  the  first-floor  level,  and  this  being  so,  the  eastern  half  of  the  house  cannot 
have  consisted  of  more  than  two  storeys;  the  western  half  may  perhaps  have  had  three. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  pottery  found  upon  the  site,  and  the  proportion  of  handmade 
vessels,  both  large  and  small,  was  noticeably  great;  it  is  clear  that  such  pottery  was  in  common 
domestic  use,  but  was  not  considered  generally  the  correct  thing  for  tomb  furniture.  In  the 
cemetery  therefore  it  was  found  mostly  in  poor  graves,  whereas  on  the  house  sites  it  is  much 
more  abundant  and  widespread.  Several  new  types  were  noted  (F  Ixxiv,  Ixxviii,  Ixxix,  A,  B 
and  C  sections  of  rims),  also  a  number  of  fragments  of  F  xii  and  kindred  types  (this  was  the 
pottery  generally  used  for  ostraka),  of  F  v,  with  painted  decoration,  F  xvii,  plain,  F  xlviii  and 
the  allied  shapes,  many  pieces  being  painted,  and  one  of  F  lix  of  black  handmade  ware,  burnished 
but  not  decorated  with  punctured  or  incised  ornament.  There  were  a  good  many  fragments  of 
F  Hi  with  a  dull  red  haematitic  ground  and  cross-hatching  or  simple  festoon  patterns  near  the 
rim  in  blue-black  and  yellowish- white.  This  particular  ware,  which  was  not  exactly  paralleled 
in  any  of  the  graves,  resembles  more  closely  that  found  by  Dr.  G.  A.  Reisner  in  the  tombs  of 
his  X  type  in  the  district  north  of  the  Blemyan  frontier;  it  is  probably  late,  and  runs  over  into 
Coptic.  Lying  on  the  surface  over  room  17  was  a  fragment  of  stamped  Christian  ware  (PI.  13) 
somewhat  like  that  shown  in  Areika,  PI.  29,  Fig.  6.  There  were  several  fragments  of  coarse 
blue  glaze  and  a  good  many  fragments  of  glass  vessels,  one  with  spiral  decoration  of  applied 
glass  thread,  and  a  broken  button  or  counter  of  millefiori  glass. 

House  3. 

House  J.  This  house  stood  high  up  on  a  spur  of  rock  separated  from  that  on  which  stood  house  2  by 

a  fairly  deep  sandy  channel.  Being  thus  exposed  the  house  had  suffered  greatly;  only  the 
central  rooms  remained,  and  of  these  the  walls  stood  only  some  0.60  m.  high.  They  were  all 
mud-plastered  and  whitewashed,  well  built,  and  clearly  of  early  date.  The  outer  rooms  had 
altogether  disappeared,  and  on  the  bare  rocl^  face  not  even  their  plan  could  be  recovered.  It  is 
quite  likely  that  only  the  central  rooms  were  more  than  one  storey  high,  for  such  fragments  of 
walls  as  can  still  be  traced  projecting  beyond  the  central  block  are  slighter  in  construction  and 
scarcely  capable  of  supporting  an  upper  floor;  but  the  site  was  so  ruinous  that  its  original  plan 
cannot  be  discussed  to  any  great  advantage. 

Room  I  had  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  a  small,  roughly  built  structure,  long  and  narrow, 
and  about  0.50m.  high,  covered  with  a  barrel- vault,  and  with  an  opening  at  its  east  end;  it 
suggested  a  baking-oven,  but  did  not  show  sufficient  signs  of  burning  to  give  much  ground  to 
the  suggestion.  Three  small  and  very  fragmentary  ostraka  were  found  in  the  room.  There 
were  no  traces  of  doors  at  the  height  to  which  the  walls  stood. 

Room  2  had  a  doorway  at  its  northwest  corner  giving  access  to  room  3 ;  the  west  wall  was 
destroyed  almost  down  to  floor  level,  but  a  gap  in  the  centre  of  it  seemed  to  mark  the  place 
where  there  had  been  an  outer  door;  this,  however,  had  apparently  been  blocked  up  later,  and 
a  thin  wall  some  3.00  m.  long  met  the  wall-face  just  at  this  point. 


THE  HOUSE  RUINS 


31 


Room  3  communicated  with  rooms  2  and  4,  but  possessed  no  features  of  any  interest.         House  3. 

Room  4  had  had  a  doorway  into  room  5,  but  the  south  wall  had  suffered  very  much,  and 
the  door-jambs  had  disappeared.  Against  this  wall  there  had  been  a  small  bin  built  of  mud 
brick  and  daub.  A  piece  of  glass  enamelled  with  flowers  in  red,  yellow  and  blue,  was  found  in 
this  room,  actually  below  what  had  been  the  floor  level,  but  the  floor  level  was  too  much  broken 
for  this  fact  to  have  any  significance,  and  the  glass  is  almost  certainly  of  Arab  date.  In  the 
room  were  also  found  two  fragments  of  clay  statuettes  (9124  A,  PI.  13),  and  a  piece  of  a  small 
obsidian  vase. 

Room  5  had  a  breach  in  the  east  wall,  which  may  represent  an  original  doorway;  comparison 
with  other  plans  would  lead  us  to  expect  a  staircase  in  this  room,  but  in  its  ruined  condition 
there  was  no  sign  of  such. 

The  projecting  walls  to  the  north  of  the  house  gave  evidence  of  a  room  or  rooms  of  which 
the  major  part  had  disappeared.  Two  parallel  walls  close  together  and  3.70  m.  long  may  perhaps 
represent  an  open-air  staircase.  Close  to  this  there  were  two  furnaces  hewn  roughly  into  the 
brickwork  of  the  main  house-wall  and  burnt  a  deep  red  by  constant  use.  Beyond  them  two 
pillars  of  brickwork,  one  against  the  wall-face  and  another  0.65  m.  from  the  first,  were  of  uncertain 
meaning.  Close  to  this  was  found  a  bronze  finger-ring  with  apparently  unmeaning  marks 
engraved  on  the  bezel  (9106). 

A  small  fragment  of  an  ostrakon  (PI.  20,  Fig.  7)  was  found  just  south  of  the  central 
building  in  the  ruined  room  there,  of  which  only  the  beginnings  of  the  walls  remained. 

House  4  (see  PI.  27). 

Houses  4,  5  and  6  formed  a  single  group  in  the  middle  of  the  town;  they  were  contiguous,  House  4. 
and  it  was  not  easy  to  see  precisely  what  were  the  limits  of  each.  Between  4  and  5  an  alley 
ending  in  an  open  yard  seemed  to  give  a  fairly  definite  barrier,  though  in  the  latest  period  the 
levels  here  were  so  much  raised  that  early  barriers  were  quite  obliterated,  and  the  yard  which 
properly  belongs  to  house  5  may  well  have  extended  into  the  neighbouring  property.  Houses 
4  and  6  were  still  more  difficult  to  define.  It  seems  tolerably  clear  that  in  the  first  period  house  4a, 
which  was  perhaps  an  earlier  building  altogether,  was  the  principal  structure.  A  little  later, 
probably,  the  small  and  comparatively  poor  house  6a  was  built  up  against  the  corner  of  it,  between 
it  and  the  fine  early  house  to  the  south:  it  maybe  that  6a  was  really  an  annex  to  4a.  In  the 
later  period  considerable  additions  were  made  to  house  6a,  various  rooms  being  added  against 
the  east  wall  of  4a,  and  while  most  of  the  old  walls  continued  in  use,  a  large  new  courtyard  was 
added  on  the  southeast,  and  there  were  incorporated  what  seem  to  have  been  outbuildings  of 
the  first  period.  Over  the  ruins  of  house  4a,  a  good  many  of  whose  walls  were  still  standing 
high  enough  to  be  re-used,  other  rooms  were  built;  but  whether  these  formed  part  of  the  new 
house  6  or  formed  (as  is  more  probable)  a  separate  dwelling,  it  is  difficult  to  decide:  the  fact 
that  the  late  house  4  had  a  courtyard  of  its  own  on  the  west,  overlying  the  rooms  7  a  and  8  a  of 
the  older  house,  make  it  more  probable  that  the  buildings  were  separate.  House  4  will  therefore 
be  treated  as  a  distinct  building  both  of  the  early  and  of  the  late  dates.  It  is  to  be  noticed, 
however,  that  though  two  levels*  can  be  clearly  differentiated  on  the  site — corresponding  to  a 
first  period,  namely  that  of  the  founding  of  the  town  in  general,  and  to  a  period  of  rebuilding 
after  destruction — yet  here  the  work  of  the  second  period  is  vastly  better  in  quality  than  that, 
for  instance,  upon  site  5 ;  this  difference  may  be  due  merely  to  the  relative  wealth  of  the 
owners,  but  a  comparison  of  the  details  makes  it  appear  more  probable  that  the  rebuilding  is 
earlier  in  date  than  that  of  house  5  and  of  other  sites  such  as  house  8.  It  is  important  to  recognize 
this,  as  otherwise  confusion  might  arise  from  supposing  that,  the  period  of  reconstruction  being 

*The  patching  of  the  walls  of  the  second  period  was  on  a  small  scale  and  did  not  alter  levels. 


32 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


House  4.  uniform  throughout  the  whole  town,  corresponding  levels  upon  different  house-sites  could  be  used 
indiscriminately  for  chronological  arguments.  This  is  not  the  case;  levels  in  each  house  must 
be  considered  separately. 

Rooms  I  to  6  of  the  latest  house  overlay  older  rooms,  also  six  in  number  but  differently 
arranged. 

Room  I.  The  floor  was  of  mud  laid  over  a  mass  of  vaulting-bricks  that  represented  the  roof 
of  the  older  house :  the  walls  were  solid  and  well  built ;  when  they  did  not  run  over  the  old  walls 
which  served  as  their  foundation,  the  new  foundations  went  down  nearly  as  low  as  the  old  floor 
level.  In  the  room  were  found  fragments  of  common  undecorated  pottery  and  the  rim  of  a 
big  bowl  with  rosette  ornament  in  relief.  Under  the  floor  level  were  two  rooms  of  the  older 
period  and  also  a  narrow  passageway  which  seems  to  have  served  as  the  main  entrance  to  the 
house  and  thus  gives  to  it  a  ground  plan  rather  different  from  anything  else  found  upon  the  site. 
The  front  door  was  on  the  north,  and  the  hall  led  straight  through  to  the  staircase  and  thence  to 
room  4  a,  while  a  door  on  the  left  opened  on  room  2  a  and  the  small  room  i  a  was  reached  through 
this.  The  floor  of  the  rooms  was  i.io  m.  below  that  of  the  later  building,  the  walls  were  for  the 
most  part  heavy,  well  built,  mud-rendered  and  whitewashed:  the  rooms  had  all  been  vaulted. 
In  the  room  2  a  were  the  fragments  of  a  handmade  jar  (F  v.)  with  red  haematite  surface  and  a 
rough  design  of  spots  and  bars  in  white  (91 16);  in  the  southeast  corner  of  the  same  room,  by 
the  doorway,  stood  a  red  vessel  of  handmade  ware,  full  of  ashes  and  heavily  burned,  clearly  used 
as  a  hearth.    The  doorway  seems  to  have  led  only  to  a  cupboard  under  the  stairs  in  3  a. 

Room  2.  The  central  pillar  of  the  staircase  stood  well  above  the  floor  level  of  the  neigh- 
bouring rooms,  and  on  the  east  side  of  the  pillar  the  steps  remained  also  well  above  that  level: 
it  looks  as  if  only  the  lower  flights  had  been  rubbished  up  and  the  stairs  had  continued  in  use 
during  the  later  period  of  the  house.  The  south  wall  had  been  entirely  rebuilt  and  the  north 
doorway  blocked  up. 

Rooms  3  and  4.  The  dividing  wall  between  these  two  rooms  was  broad  but  only  two 
courses  high  (one  course  was  laid  aslant  on  edge)  and  was  perhaps  never  carried  up  to  ceiling 
level:  there  was  no  opening  in  the  wall,  but  it  was  not  standing  so  high  that  part  of  it  may  not 
have  been  used  as  a  threshold.  There  was  a  door  in  the  west  wall  of  room  4  leading  out  into 
the  courtyard.  Both  the  east  wall,  which  rested  on  the  older  brickwork,  and  the  west  wall,  which 
was  independent,  were  marked  by  courses  of  bricks  set  on  edge  and  were  of  rather  inferior  style 
generally.  Under  them  lay  a  single  narrow  room  (4  a)  which  extended  a  little  to  the  south 
beyond  the  main  wall  of  the  later  building.  The  upper  floor  level  had  perished  but 
the  foundations  of  the  later  walls  were  only  0.80  m.  above  those  of  the  older.  In  this  room  was 
found  the  chalice  91 18. 

Rooms.  The  upper  floor  level  was  preserved  and  was  i.iom.  above  the  lower,  the 
intermediate  space  being  filled  up  with  vaulting  bricks  fallen  from  the  first  roof:  the  old  walls 
were  whitewashed,  and  stood  from  0.60  m.  to  1.20  m.  high.  In  the  late  east  wall  was  a  doorway 
which  had  been  blocked  up  at  a  subsequent  period  with  a  typical  late  Blemyan  wall  of  rough 
small  bricks  with  header  courses  slantwise  on  edge ;  this  piece  of  brickwork  resembles  that  on  such 
sites  as  house  5  (late)  and  is  perhaps  more  contemporary  with  them,  house  4  (late)  belonging 
to  an  earlier  time  than  the  upper  buildings  on  some  other  sites.  In  this  room  and  in  room  6, 
where  too  the  upper  floor  level  was  intact  i.io  m.  above  the  older,  no  pottery  of  any  particular 
interest  was  found. 

Rooms  7  a  and  8  a  did  not  communicate  directly  with  room  4  a,  alongside  of  which  they 
lay,  but  seem  to  have  been  reached  through  another  room  or  passage  on  the  south  which  lay 
outside  the  limits  of  the  excavations :  a  breach  of  the  east  end  of  the  party  wall  was  probably 
a  doorway  between  the  two  rooms,  and  in  the  northwest  corner  of  8  a  was  a  wide  doorway  beyond 
which  work  did  not  go;  its  east  jamb  was  preserved,  but  the  north  end  of  the  west  wall  had  been 


THE  HOUSE  RUINS 


33 


broken  away.  The  walls  were  well  built,  mud-rendered  and  whitewashed,  and  fitted  with  niches  House  4. 
for  lamps.    Fragments  of  a  good  bowl  of  clear  white  glass  were  found  in  8  a. 

Above  these  two  rooms  stretched  a  yard  belonging  to  the  later  house :  its  floor  of  beaten  mud 
was  unbroken  but  the  boundary  wall  nowhere  stood  more  than  two  courses  high  and  much  of  it 
had  disappeared  altogether.  Against  the  wall  of  the  house  a  pit  had  been  sunk  (hence  the 
breach  in  the  wall  between  7  a  and  8  a)  which  was  Hned  with  brick,  the  brickwork  was  carried 
up  a  little  above  ground  level  and  the  bin  or  granary  so  formed  was  roofed  with  rough  stone 
slabs  forming  a  raised  divan  against  the  house  wall. 

Excavations  did  not  proceed  west  of  this  yard,  and  though  a  wall  of  old  date  was  found 
running  obliquely  from  the  northwest  corner  of  room  8  a  down  to  a  small  room  that  underlay 
the  late  courtyard  (11)  of  house  5,  its  connection,  if  any,  with  the  ground  plan  of  house  4  a  could 
not  be  ascertained. 

House  5  (see  PH.  9,  26). 

There  were  here  two  houses,  the  later  superimposed  upon  the  earlier  but  covering  a  larger  House  5. 
area.  Many  of  the  older  walls  were  incorporated  in  the  second  building  but  some  had  been 
destroyed  down  below  the  upper  floor  level  and  were  consequently  disregarded  when  the  lines 
of  the  later  house  were  laid  out.  The  older  house  was  a  poorly  built  structure  apparently  of  only  one 
floor,  for  the  walls  were  not  strong  enough  to  support  a  second  storey  and  no  vaulting-bricks 
were  noticeable  amongst  the  ruins.  In  one  or  two  instances  there  were  courses  of  headers  set 
on  edge  in  the  walls  of  the  upper  building,  which  from  its  general  character  may  be  classed  as 
more  or  less  contemporary  with  the  upper  houses  on  sites  6  and  8 ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the 
earlier  building  here  is  necessarily  of  the  same  date  as  the  lower  houses  on  these  other  sites.  It 
may  be  so,  in  which  case  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  dwelling  of  the  poorer  class  of  people;  but  it 
equally  well  may  and  perhaps  more  probablj^  does  belong  to  the  middle  period  when  some  of  the 
older  houses  were  undergoing  repair  and  alteration.  The  later  house  was  also  of  a  poor  type 
throughout,  and  the  heavy  layer  of  mud  and  burnt  rubbish  that  spread  over  a  great  part  of  the 
site  may  well  be  the  remains  of  a  flat  roof  of  mats  or  palm-ribs  laid  across  beams  and  covered 
with  a  mud  coating;  this  is  the  roof  normally  in  use  at  the  present  day. 

Even  the  lower  house-plan  is  ill-ordered  and  irregular.  It  seems  to  have  formed  roughly 
two  sides  of  a  square  of  which  the  remainder,  in  the  southeast,  was  an  open  court;  the  rooms 
were  in  a  double  range  except  in  the  southwest  corner  which  was  given  over  to  a  magazine.  But 
if  this  was  a  rambling  building,  the  later  house  was  a  maze  in  which  neither  levels  nor  angles 
were  regarded;  it  is  the  haphazard  kind  of  thing  that  the  modern  Nubian  would  perpetrate. 
For  the  sake  of  clearness  the  room  numbers  of  the  earlier  house  are  distinguished  by  the 
letter  ''a". 

Room  I  had  no  doorway  and  probably  had  had  no  roof;  it  seemed  to  be  merely  a  space 
partitioned  off  from  the  rest  of  the  courtyard  2 .  In  it  was  found  a  small  ostrakon  (PI.  20,  Fig.  6) , 
and  scattered  over  this  room  and  2  were  numerous  pieces  of  rough  pottery,  fragments  of  three 
glass  vessels  and  a  small  piece  of  lead.  The  north  and  west  walls  belonged  to  the  later  date  only, 
the  east  and  south  to  both  periods. 

Room  2  was  an  open  courtyard:  the  south  and  west  walls  belonged  to  both  periods;  at 
the  northwest  corner  there  was  apparently  a  doorway  leading  into  8  and  at  the  northeast  corner 
a  doorway  into  3 :  both  of  these  had  been  much  ruined. 

Room  3  apparently  communicated  with  rooms  2  and  5,  but  the  whole  end  of  the 
wall  separating  these  two  rooms  and  forming  the  west  side  of  room  3  had  disappeared. 

Room  I  a  of  the  earlier  building  had  been  all  one  open  court. 

Room  4  had  a  doorway  on  the  west  into  room  5 :  it  presented  no  features  of  interest. 


34 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


House  5.  Room  5  was  a  large  room  (5.80  m.  by  3.90  m.)  with  doorways  on  the  east  to  rooms  4  and  3 

(probably)  and  on  the  west  to  room  10:  on  the  (upper)  floor  level  were  found  two  fragments 
forming  together  a  large  ostrakon  (PI.  iq).    Beneath  this  were  several  rooms  of  the  older  building. 

Room  2  a  lay  partly  underneath  room  4.  partly  underneath  room  5 ;  it  was  filled  up  with 
perfectly  clean  drifted  sand,  on  the  top  of  which  were  laid  the  later  floor  and  wall  foundations, 
0.80  m.  above  the  foundations  of  the  earlier  walls. 

Room  3  a  lay  under  room  6,  occupying  the  east  part  of  it:  a  buttressed  curtain  wall  with  a 
doorway  at  its  south  end  separated  it  from  room  6  a;  against  the  north  wall  was  a  mud  bench. 

Room  4  a  lay  underneath  rooms  5  and  8 ;  it  was  filled  up  with  a  mass  of  fallen  brickwork 
amongst  which  w^ere  numerous  fragments  of  pottery  and  two  ostraka.  The  walls  had  been 
neither  whitewashed  nor  mud-plastered :  there  was  no  doorway  at  the  height  to  which  the  walls 
stood,  circ.  i.oo  m.,  so  that  the  room  must  have  been  a  magazine  only. 

Room  5  a  lay  underneath  rooms  5  and  10:  the  walls  stood  about  i.oo  m.  high  and  were 
neither  whitewashed  nor  plastered:  there  was  no  door. 

Room  6  a  lay  beneath  the  west  part  of  room  6 :  the  west  wall  like  that  of  3  a  was  a  buttressed 
curtain  wall  with  a  doorway  leading  outside  the  house. 

Room  6  was  a  long  and  narrow  space  that  apparently  had  not  been  roofed.  In  it  was  found 
the  pot  Flxxvii,  (9117). 

Room  7  was  a  small  room  that  apparently  had  been  used  as  a  storeroom,  for  it  had  no  door 
at  floor  level,  though  the  walls  were  ruined  down  so  low  that  the  evidence  was  not  absolute. 

Room  7  a  lying  below  the  last  had  been  divided  into  two  unequal  parts  by  a  wall  running 
east  by  west  and  these  two  parts  had  been  covered  in  by  low  barrel-vaults  so  as  to  form  two 
magazines  about  i.io  m.  high  with  openings  (probably)  at  the  east  end:  their  roofs  had  been 
broken  through  and  the  whole  room  filled  up  solid  with  rubbish  over  which  was  laid  the  floor 
of  room  7. 

Room  8  was  a  passage  with  two  rectangular  turns  and  a  dividing  door.  It  seemed  to  be 
entered  from  2  but  the  south  jamb  had  disappeared  so  that  the  exact  length  of  this  member  of  the 
passage  was  uncertain.  In  the  southwest  angle  was  a  (ruined)  hearth,  the  wall  around  it  a  good 
deal  discoloured  by  heat.  In  the  part  of  the  passage  that  ran  north  by  south  was  a  doorway, 
after  which  the  passage  took  a  turn  to  the  left.  Here  the  walls  were  hopelessly  ruined.  The 
south  wall  of  room  10  seems  to  have  continued  eastwards  from  its  angle,  in  which  case  there  must 
have  been  in  it  a  doorway  opening  onto  the  passage :  there  was  no  sign  of  any  wall  against  the  face 
of  the  east  wall  of  the  passage,  so  the  door  may  have  been  here  (as  suggested  on  the  plan)  in 
the  southeast  corner  of  the  room.  If  the  passage  also  gave  access  to  room  9  it  must  have  been 
at  the  corner  where  the  east  end  of  the  north  wall  was  ruined  quite  away;  in  that  case 
the  continuation  of  the  passage  westward  would  have  formed  a  recess. 

Room  9.  Besides  the  possible  opening  in  the  northeast  corner  there  was  a  doorway  in  the 
middle  of  the  west  side  leading  out  into  the  yard;  the  walls,  which  had  been  very  badly  built 
originally,  were  now  particularly  ruinous. 

Room  10.  The  north  wall  rested  on  the  wall  of  the  older  room;  the  east  wall  was  late. 
The  south  wall  had  almost  entirely  disappeared,  but  remains  at  the  west  end  pointed  to  its  having 
run  along  for  the  greater  part  of  the  room's  length;  the  west  wall  was  built  very  much  askew. 
All  these  late  walls  were  badly  built;  in  the  photograph  on  PI.  9  a  can  be  seen  the  edge-set  headers 
in  the  west  wall,  where  broken  bricks  were  commonly  employed ;  the  wall-faces,  however,  had  been 
roughly  plastered  and  whitewashed.  Under  this  room  was  room  9  a,  a  storeroom  of  the  early 
house;  it  had  no  doorway  at  the  level  to  which  the  walls  stood  (0.75  m.  and  less).  In  the  middle 
of  the  room  was  a  large  store-pot  with  its  rim  broken  away;  it  was  0.97  m.  high  and  had  been 
buried  for  about  half  its  height  in  clean  sand ;  above  this  level  the  room  was  full  of  fallen  bricks 
and  rubbish  on  which  the  later  floor  was  laid.    In  the  pot  were  remains  of  palm-leaf  matting. 


THE  HOUSE  RUINS 


35 


The  west  wall  of  the  room  was  also  the  outer  wall  of  the  older  house;  outside  it,  in  the  yard  and  House  5. 
immediately  under  the  west  wall  of  room  10,  was  a  big  earthenware  basin  with  top  diameter 
0.77  m.,  bottom  diameter  0.56  m.  and  height  0.27  m.    The  basin  was  empty  and  had  been  broken 
by  the  weight  of  the  wall  resting  on  it  (see  PI.  9  a). 

The  northwestern  rooms  of  the  later  house  were  much  ruined,  and  owing  to  their  different 
levels  it  was  not  easy  to  judge  of  their  original  arrangement.  Thus  from  room  9  there  was  a  step 
up  into  room  12,  and  from  this  again  four  steps  led  up  towards  room  11;  but  in  the  northwest 
corner  of  this  room  the  remains  of  the  old  walls  were  still  standing  to  a  considerable  height  and 
the  floor  attached  to  the  south  wall  was  1.30  m.  above  that  of  12;  there  must  therefore  have 
been  several  more  steps  which  have  disappeared.  The  courtyard  that 
lay  outside  the  west  wall  of  house  4  was  about  on  a  level  with  the  floor  of 
room  II  in  house  5,  which  was  probably  also  an  open  court. 

Room  12  may  well  have  been  unroofed.  The  whole  of  the  west 
wall  was  destroyed  by  "sebakh"  diggers,  and  a  few  bricks  seemed  to  show 
that  another  wall  had  run  across  it  dividing  it  into  two,  a  northern  and 
a  southern  half,  and  had  been  similarly  destroyed.  In  the  middle  of  the 
floor  space  were  found  two  fragments  of  stone  cut  on  two  planes  with  a 

device  of  bars  and  circles  (see  cut) :  their  use  is  conjectural.     A  very  small  ostrakon  was 
also  found  here. 

The  west  wall  of  13  showed  two  periods  of  building:  the  lower  part  of  the  wall  was  continued 
through  and  formed  the  west  wall  of  room  11  as  originally  designed.  When  room  11  was  heaped 
up  with  rubbish  and  the  floor  level  raised  so  as  to  run  over  the  top  of  the  older  buildings  in  its 
southwest  corner,  this  wall  was  dismantled  and  buried  with  the  rest:  so  that  the  western  limits 
of  room  II  in  its  latest  period  are  not  ascertained.  But  room  13  was  kept  to  its  original  plan  and 
along  the  ruins  of  the  older  wall  a  new  one  was  built  which  now  stands  0.70  high.  But  even  the 
earlier  of  these  two  walls  belongs  to  the  late  period,  and  not  to  that  represented  by  the  under- 
lying house  5  a,  still  less  to  that  of  the  lower  levels  of  site  4.  The  periods  of  building  and  of 
rebuilding  on  the  different  sites  are  not  coincident. 

The  doorway  of  room  13  must  have  been  in  the  ruined  east  wall.  On  the  floor  were  found 
two  ostraka  (PI.  20,  Fig.  3)  and  another  inconsiderable  fragment. 


Scale  1:20 


House  6  (see  PI.  27). 

The  southern  part  of  house  6  with  its  courtyard  and  outbuildings  was  superimposed  over  House  6. 
the  ruins  of  two  older  buildings  which  do  not  seem  to  have  any  connection  with  each  other: 
in  that  case  the  older  house  6  a  was  quite  small,  consisting  of  four  rooms  and  a  staircase.  The 
later  house  had  a  much  greater  area.  • 

Rooms  I,  2  and  3  stood  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  house  Here  had  stood  an  earlier  building 
(rooms  A,  B,  and  C)  whose  walls  were  in  part  used  as  foundations  for  the  later  work  though 
their  lines  were  not  very  closely  followed.  The  difference  in  depth  between  the  two  levels  was 
about  0.80  m.  The  earlier  walls  were  built  entirely  of  large  bricks  used  as  headers  (a  feature 
only  observed  upon  this  part  of  the  site),  while  the  later  walls,  which  were  of  good  construction, 
had  alternate  headers  and  stretchers  in  each  course.  At  the  northeast  corner  on  the  top  of  the 
new  wall  was  a  hollow  apsidal  construction,  of  six  courses  of  brick  stepped  outwards  at  the  curved 
east  end  and  perpendicular  on  the  straight  west  end:  presumably  it  was  a  granary  of  late 
date,  posterior  to  the  destruction  of  this  second  period  building.  Outside  the  northwest  corner 
was  a  mud  divan.  To  the  east  of  these  rooms  stretched  a  large  courtyard  belonging  to  the  second 
period  only:  in  its  southeast  corner  was  a  round  hole  plastered  inside  with  mud — one  of  the  crude 
mud  vessels  to  be  seen  in  any  Nubian  courtyard  at  the  present  day ;  in  the  northeast  was  a  group 
of  small  magazines  (4  and  5)  approached  by  a  flight  of  three  steps,  and  another  small  magazine 


36 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


House  6.  was  built  just  west  of  these  against  the  north  wall  of  the  courtyard  and  the  corner  of  the  house. 

The  yard  wall  was  of  ordinary  type  (alternate  headers  and  stretchers)  but  thin  and  poorly  built: 
the  floor  was  simply  a  heavy  bed  of  ashes  and  house  refuse. 

Room  I  a  lay  partly  underneath  the  west  part  of  the  courtyard.  This  was  a  well-built 
room  with  a  doorway  to  the  east:  in  the  south  and  west  wall  were  niches;  the  walls 
were  originally  whitewashed.  In  the  north  wall  two  doors  led  into  room  2  a  and  the  staircase  (3  a) , 
respectively.  In  the  southwest  corner  of  the  room  were  found  several  pots,  including  two 
decorated  specimens  (F  v  and  F  xlviii)  and  a  number  of  plain  ones. 

Room  6,  the  staircase  (  =  3  a),  seems  to  have  been  used  equally  in  both  periods.  There  was 
a  little  cupboard  under  it,  approached  from  room  7  (  =  2  a),  in  which  were  found  some  small 
plain  pots.  The  two  lower  steps  on  the  south  side  of  the  pillar  were  rubbished  up  in  the  second 
period,  and  the  ascent  then  started  on  the  east  flight,  whose  third  step  (the  highest)  gave  a 
height  of  1. 10  m.  above  the  lower  floor  level.  As  far  as  could  be  made  out,  room  5  a  had  been 
rubbished  up  to  a  height  of  1.40  m.,  at  which  level  was  laid  the  floor  of  the  new  room  9;  this 
floor  had  disappeared,  but  a  new  wall  had  been  built  parallel  with  that  of  the  stairwell  across 
room  5  a,  leaving  a  narrow  cupboard  (?)  0.40  m.  wide  between,  and  this  later  wall,  for  economy's 
sake,  was  built  with  arch  foundations,  the  arches  resting  on  the  ruined  east  and  west  walls  of 
room  5  a  and  on  the  wall  that  ran  just  west  of  the  latter:  the  crown  of  these  arcTies  coincided 
with  the  apparent  floor  level  of  the  later  room.  This  room  9  was  probably  entered  by  a  doorway 
(through  both  walls)  in  its  southwest  corner,  where  the  stairs  would  just  have  reached  its 
floor  level. 

The  only  other  rooms  of  the  older  house  were  2  a  and  4  a,  the  latter  opening  into  5  a  by 
the  whole  length  of  its  side;  the  small  space  west  of  5  a  was  presumably  a  cupboard,  being  only 
0.75  m.  wide.  They  presented  no  particular  features  of  interest,  but  had  all  been  vaulted. 
Beyond  these,  along  the  east  wall  of  house  4,  stretched  three  more  rooms,  apparently  forming 
part  of  house  6 ;  they  were  much  ruined,  and  the  only  thing  of  interest  discovered  was  a  fragment 

of  a  stone  screen,  thus   (^^^^   ;  its  extreme  measurement  was  0.125  i^^- 

To  the  south  of  house  6  were  the  remains  of  several  buildings  belonging  exclusively  to  the 
early  period.  The  excavation  of  these  was  only  pursued  far  enough  to  give  a  reasonable  definition 
to  the  area  within  which  work  was  confined;  the  walls  therefore  form  no  coherent  plan. 

Room  D  was  clearly  part  of  a  fine  and  well-built  house.  The  whitewashed  walls  were  solid 
and  preserved  nearly  to  the  springers  of  the  vault  whose  ruins  cumbered  the  floor-space;  the 
doors  were  provided  with  stone  thresholds,  and  the  outer  door  had  its  hinge-stone  still  in  situ; 
a  bowl  of  plain  pottery  was  the  only  object  discovered  in  the  room.  In  front  of  this  house,  to 
the  east,  there  had  been  apparently  a  courtyard,  which  was  covered  by  a  heavy  midden  deposit; 
in  this  were  found  an  ostrakon  (PI.  21,  Fig.  5),  a  scarab  (91 13),  and  a  green  glaze  figure  of 
Bes  (91 1 2).  South  of  this  area  was  a  wall,  apparently  that  of  the  courtyard,  with  a  group  of 
three  low  vaulted  magazines,  the  largest  having  a  flight  of  three  steps  inside  it. 

House  7  (see  PI.  27). 

House  7.  This  was  a  very  small  house,  containing  only  four  proper  rooms  and  a  staircase  on  each 

floor.  Judging  from  the  thickness  of  the  walls  (0.80  m.),  it  had  been  of  two  storeys.  In  its 
ruined  condition  the  walls  towards  the  centre  of  the  site  stood  as  high  as  1.35  m.,  while  some  of 
the  outer  walls  were  razed  to  their  foundations.  The  house  was  an  early  one  of  solid  brick 
construction,  the  walls  carefully  mud-plastered  and  whitewashed.  After  the  destruction  of  the 
original  building  there  had  been  a  second  period  of  occupation,  when  most  of  the  original  walls 


THE  HOUSE  RUINS 


37 


had  been  re-used,  but  the  floor  level  considerably  raised  and  the  ground-plan  altered  in  some  House  j. 
respects. 

Room  I  had  doorways  in  the  north  and  east  walls  leading  to  rooms  3  and  2,  respectively. 
The  first  doorway  was  blocked  up  by  a  large  irregularly  constructed  bin  of  mud  brick  and  daub, 
and  a  similar  structure  stood  in  the  northeast  corner.  Both  of  these  belonged  to  the  later  period 
of  the  house;  inside  they  were  smoothly  lined  with  mud,  and  were  carried  down  to  the  original 
floor  level,  but  their  outsides  were  left  perfectly  rough  and  had  been  buried  beneath  the  later 
floor  level  to  the  height  of  one  metre.  In  the  southwest  corner,  close  to  the  modern  surface, 
was  found  a  coin  of  Nero  struck  at  Alexandria  in  65  a.  d.  (9103). 

Room  2  had  a  doorway  into  room  3,  which  had  been  walled  up  during  the  later  period. 
The  double  bin  that  stood  in  its  northeast  corner  was  better  constructed  than  most  of  the  later 
work,  and  stood  on  the  original  floor  level,  but  it  was  difficult  to  say  to  which  period  it  belonged. 

Room  3  communicated  on  the  east  with  room  4,  and  on  the  south  with  rooms  i  and  2.  The 
north  wall  had  been  much  ruined,  but  a  gap  near  the  west  end,  where  there  were  no  signs  of 
walling  at  all,  must,  in  the  absence  of  any  gate  elsewhere,  show  the  position  of  the  original 
entrance  to  the  house.  Against  this  wall  was  a  mud  hearth,  rounded  inside  and  heavily  burned; 
against  the  south  wall,  between  the  two  doors,  was  a  long  low  divan  of  mud  brick.  Towards 
the  southeast  corner  of  the  room  was  a  fragment  of  rough  and  flimsy  walling  whose  foundations 
were  0.60  m.  above  the  original  floor  level;  this  is  consistent  with  the  i.oo  m.  stratum  between 
the  two  floor  levels  discernible  in  room  i .  In  the  northwest  corner  was  found  a  broken  mud 
jar-sealing  stamped  with  the  Christian  "labarum"  (PI.  15);  this  belonged  to  the  upper  level 
of  later  occupation. 

Room  4,  communicating  with  room  3  and  with  the  staircase.  The  east  wall  had  been  much 
destroyed,  and  at  one  point,  towards  its  south  end,  had  been  patched  with  a  rough  wall,  wherein 
was  a  course  of  bricks  used  as  headers  on  edge  in  the  late  Blemyan  style.  The  south  wall  had 
been  entirely  razed  down  to  floor  level;  only  the  west  jamb  of  the  doorway  and  the  width  of 
the  stairs  pointed  to  its  ever  having  existed. 

Room  5.  The  staircase.  This  was  quite  ruined,  only  the  central  pillar  and  the  lowest 
step  being  traceable.  It  is  clear  that  in  the  second  period  the  stairs  were  not  used;  the  later 
floor  was  laid  over  the  ruins  of  the  pillar  and  the  wall  that  divided  the  staircase  from  room  4, 
making  one  room  out  of  the  two. 

Room  6  was  only  an  open  yard,  roughly  rectangular,  having  a  gateway  at  its  east  end. 

House  8  (see  PH.  10,  29). 

The  site  had  passed  through  three  periods,  of  which  the  first  and  last  represent  a  different  House  8. 
period  and  a  different  style  in  building.  The  earliest  house  was  solidly  built  of  mud  brick,  its 
walls  well  plastered  and  whitewashed.  At  a  later  time  additions  and  alterations  were  made; 
the  floor  level  was  in  some  cases  at  least  slightly  raised,  doors  were  walled  up,  but  the  general 
plan  remained  almost  the  same ;  it  was  a  case  of  repairs  rather  than  of  rebuilding.  Later  again 
this  house  was  largely  destroyed:  the  vaulted  roofs  collapsed,  the  rooms  were  filled  with  drifted 
sand,  and  only  some  of  the  less  battered  walls  still  protruded  above  the  surface.  On  this  site 
was  erected  a  new  building;  the  standing  walls  of  the  older  house  were  incorporated  in  it,  so 
that  where  they  were  could  be  utilized  the  plans  are  coincident ;  but  where  the  older  ruins  had 
been  wholly  buried  the  new  builders  disregarded  their  position  and  their  lines  alike  and  proceeded 
independently.  The  new  building  was  very  different  from  its  predecessor  in  having  slighter 
walls,  less  regular  in  their  angles,  and  fit  to  support  a  flat  roof  only  instead  of  the  barrel- 
vaulting  of  the  older  structure;  it  was  a  building  of  a  single  storey  only,  roughly  finished  and 
squalid,  and  in  every  way  marked  the  decadence  that  had  set  in  since  the  time  when  the  earlier 
builders  of  Karanbg  laid  the  stout  walls  of  their  lofty  houses. 


38 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


House  8.  The  house  stood  upon  the  slope,  so  that  the  westernmost  rooms  were  upon  the  solid  rock, 

and  in  consequence  had  suffered  very  greatly,  while  the  lower  walls  were  built  upon  the  sand, 
and  being  covered  by  the  drifts,  were  much  better  preserved. 
Rooms  I  to  7  had  no  older  remains  beneath  them. 

Room  I  had  a  doorway  in  the  east  wall  leading  to  room  3 ;  there  may  well  have  been  a 
doorway  in  the  north  wall  also,  but  this  was  too  ruinous  to  show  any  traces  of  one.  In  the 
northeast  corner  of  the  room  was  a  bin  with  mud  walls,  sunken  below  floor  level. 

Room  2.  All  the  walls  were  in  a  ruinous  condition,  standing  from  0.20  m.  to  0.40  m.  high, 
and  in  many  places  destroyed  down  to  floor  level.  There  may  have  been  a  doorway  in  the 
north  wall,  and  presumably  were  others  leading  to  the  rooms  to  the  east  and  south.  In  the 
west  wall  had  been  an  entrance  door;  the  wall  here  had  wholly  disappeared,  but  a  large  fiat 
slab  of  living  sandstone  had  been  smoothed  and  trimmed  to  act  as  a  threshold;  the  line  of  the 
wall  ran  flush  with  its  edge. 

Rooms  3  and  4  were  also  too  ruinous  to  present  any  features  of  interest;  the  former 
communicated  with  rooms  i  and  8,  the  latter  must  have  had  a  door  through  into  room  5.  Both 
rooms  showed  traces  of  more  than  one  floor  level,  but  between  these  there  was  not  more  difference 
in  height  than  would  be  accounted  for  by  a  slight  repairing,  or  even  by  a  reasonable  period  of 
indecent  living. 

Room  5  was  a  narrow  closet  in  which,  at  the  south  end,  a  large  store-pot  was  buried  in  the 
floor  apparently  up  to  its  rim  (both  floor  level  and  rim  had  disappeared) . 

Rooms  6  and  7  are  two  divisions  of  an  open-air  yard,  with  walls  partly  of  uncoursed  rubble, 
partly  of  rubble  laid  in  herring-bone  fashion,  recalling  some  of  the  walls  of  houses  in  the  Romano- 
Nubian  settlement  opposite  Haifa. 

The  floor  levels  of  the  eastern  part  of  the  new  house,  built  over  the  old,  started  0.60  m, 
below  that  of  rooms  3,  4  and  5,  and  were  stepped  down  again  in  the  more  easterly  rooms. 

Room  8.  All  the  walls  belonged  to  the  older  period.  The  upper  floor  had  disappeared, 
but  was  probably  level  with  that  of  room  9;  a  doorway  to  room  3  had  been  effected  through 
the  old  wall,  and  there  must  have  been  a  step  or  two  steps  from  the  threshold  to  the  floor.  The 
doorway  into  room  12  had  been  altered:  in  the  original  building  the  framework  had  stood  in  a 
reveal  in  the  east  side  of  the  north  jamb  and  had  been  let  into  a  groove  cut  in  the  face  of  the 
south  wall.  In  the  later  period  the  north  reveal  and  the  groove  were  filled  up  with  walling 
that  projected  to  form  the  jambs  of  a  narrower  doorway.  The  walls  had  all  been  plastered 
and  whitewashed  in  the  older  period.  The  room  was  filled  up  with  clean  drifted  sand  in  which 
were  found  two  fragments  of  a  Greek  ostrakon  (see  p.  4).  Also  in  this  room  was  found  a 
curved  and  toothed  sickle-blade  like  that  from  the  castle  (see  PI.  15). 

Room  9.  All  the  walls  belong  to  the  first  period  and  are  plastered  and  whitewashed.  They 
stood  about  2.00  m.  high  from  the  lowest  floor.  In  the  north  wall  was  a  doorway  apparently 
leading  outside  the  house;  this  in  the  middle  period  had  been  walled  up  with  a  fairly  well-built 
wall  the  lowest  course  of  which  was  composed  of  bricks  laid  edgewise  as  headers;  this  wall 
was  not  plastered  or  whitewashed.  At  the  same  time  a  new  floor  had  been  laid  0.30  m.  above 
the  old.  In  the  latest  period  all  the  walls  were  re-used,  the  north  door  remained  blocked,  the 
old  door  in  the  east  wall  was  narrowed  by  having  a  small  block  of  brickwork  built  up  against 
the  face  of  each  jamb;  the  floor  was  raised  0.80  m.  above  that  of  the  middle  period.  At  this 
time  the  room  was  used  as  a  storeroom;  large  pots  were  sunk  in  the  floor;  the  impression  of 
one  was  left  in  the  middle  of  the  room  and  another  had  almost  blocked  the  doorway. 

Room  10  was  in  reality  little  more  than  a  store-place  partitioned  off  from  room  11;  it  is 
doubtful  whether  the  dividing  wall  ever  stood  very  high  above  floor  level. 

Room  II  was  a  small  room  with  doorways  east  and  west  leading  to  rooms  13  and  5:  the 
latter  door,  in  a  wall  ruined  down  to  its  foundations,  was  rather  problematical.  The  doorway 
into  13  seems  to  have  been  prolonged  into  a  corridor  or  passage,  the  south  wall  of  which  was 


THE  HOUSE  RUINS 


39 


ruined  away  for  the  major  part  of  its  length;  in  this,  just  beyond  the  door,  was  buried  a  black  House  8. 
pot  of  handmade,  hearth-burned  pottery,  its  rim  level  with  the  floor.    The  walls  were  very 
ruinous  and  originally  of  the  poorest  construction,  bricks  and  unshaped  stones  being  mixed  quite 
indiscriminately;  the  bricks  were  small,  measuring  0.33  m.  by  0.15  m.  by  0.095 

Below  rooms  10  and  11  and  stretching  a  little  to  the  east  of  them,  was  a  room  of  the  older 
house  measuring  2.10  m.  by  1.90  m.,  with  a  doorway  at  the  east  end  of  its  north  wall.  In  the 
south  wall  was  a  square  niche  0.30  m.  high  and  0.40  m.  wide.  The  walls  were  all  whitewashed. 
To  the  north  of  this  room  was  another,  also  of  the  lowest  level,  and  not  utilized  in  the  later 
building ;  it  had  a  doorway  in  its  northeast  corner  leading  into  another  room  of  the  early  period 
that  underlay  the  late  room  13:  these  older  walls  stood  as  much  as  i.oom.  and  1.20  m  high 
(see  PI.  10). 

Room  12.  All  the  walls  were  old;  as  in  most  other  cases,  they  had  not  stood  very  high 
above  ground  level  at  the  time  when  the  later  house  came  to  be  built,  so  were  used  less  as 
walls  than  as  the  foundations  along  which  the  new  walls  might  run;  thus  in  PI.  10  b,  the  line  of 
demarcation  between  the  old  and  new  work  in  the  north  wall  of  room  12  can  plainly  be  seen; 
the  old  wall  was  thicker  than  the  new,  it  was  plastered  and  whitewashed,  whereas  the  new  was 
neither,  and  the  actual  superimposition  was  clumsily  done.  In  the  northeast  corner  of  the 
original  room  was  a  doorway,  and  there  were  two  doorways  in  the  west  wall  giving  access  to 
the  (early)  rooms  8  and  9;  between  these  two  doors  was  an  arched  niche  0.65  m.  above  the  floor, 
0.50  m.  wide  and  0.55  m.  high.  In  the  latter  room  the  two  western  doorways  had  been  narrowed, 
and  another  doorway  had  been  made  in  the  middle  of  the  eastern  wall;  the  floor  was  raised 
1.00  m.,  and  in  the  middle  of  it  was  embedded  a  very  large  pot. 

Room  13  was  L-shaped,  the  foot  of  the  L  being  a  small,  partly  walled-in  recess  in  which 
stood  a  black  handmade  globular  pot  buried  up  to  its  rim  in  the  floor.  There  was  presumably 
a  doorway  into  the  passage  part  of  room  11,  where  the  wall  was  broken  altogether  away.  All 
the  walls  except  the  south  wall,  which  was  built  over  the  old  work,  were  roughly  constructed  of 
mixed  bricks  and  broken  stones. 

The  old  room  underlying  this  has  been  already  noticed.  Outside  it,  against  the  face  of  the 
east  wall,  had  been  built  a  slight  courtyard  wall  of  brick,  containing  a  course  of  headers  on 
edge.  This  belonged  to  the  middle  period,  when  the  house  underwent  various  minor  alterations. 
At  the  same  time  the  threshold  of  the  door  in  the  northeast  corner  of  this  old  room  had  been 
raised  by  a  course  of  rough  stone  slabs  laid  slantwise  on  edge. 

Room  14  was  an  open  courtyard  used  in  all  three  periods.  The  second  floor  is  0.20  m. 
and  the  third  0.75  m.  above  the  first.  There  seems  also  to  have  been  another  at  a  height  of 
i.io  m.,  almost  level  with  the  floor  of  room  12,  but  this  had  been  of  poor  construction  and  was 
almost  entirely  broken  away;  probably  it  belonged  to  a  Coptic  settlement.  The  earliest  court 
had  had  a  doorway  at  the  west  end  of  the  south  wall  and  another  in  the  northwest  corner.  In  the 
middle  period  the  former  of  these  doorways  had  been  blocked  up  altogether  and  a  projecting 
jamb  had  been  added  to  the  south  side  of  the  latter,  the  threshold  being  raised  at  the  same 
time,  and  the  east  wall  of  the  court  was  repaired  with  a  wall  in  which  bricks  set  edgewise  as 
headers  occur.  Later  the  threshold  of  the  northwest  doorway  was  again  raised  to  meet  the  new 
floor  level;  and  finally  in  the  latest  period  the  doorway  was  blocked  altogether.  In  the 
photograph  on  PI.  10  a,  the  blocking  of  the  south  doorway  is  clearly  seen,  the  space  below  the 
later  brickwork  showing  the  rise  in  floor  level  that  had  occurred  before  the  change  was  made. 
In  the  court  were  found  fragments  of  a  large  handmade  terra-cotta  chest,  rudely  painted  in 
red  on  a  pink  slip  with  a  design  in  which  the  cross  is  the  chief  motive  (PI.  13);  fragments  of  a 
number  of  large  handmade  jars  and  of  some  of  form  F  xii,  a  fragment  of  a  small  vessel  of 
millefiori  glass  and  part  of  a  painted  saucer  of  regular  Coptic  style  resembling  that  from 
house  9  (PI.  13). 


40 


KAR.\NOG,  THE  TOWN 


House  9  (see  PH.  11,  28). 

House  g.  This  small  house  diflfered  very  greatly  from  all  the  others  excavated.    The  plan  was  wholly 

different,  having  a  certain  resemblance  to  that  of  a  Coptic  church,  though  varying  from  that  in 
essential  details;  the  method  of  construction  too  was  different,  for  whereas  mud  brick  was 
practically  the  only  material  used  on  other  sites,  here  the  majority  of  the  walls  were  built  of 
sandstone  rubble  plastered  with  mud  and  whitewashed.  The  objects  found  in  the  house  showed 
that  at  one  time  at  least  it  had  been  occupied  by  a  Christian  folk;  how  much  of  it,  if  any,  dates 
back  to  an  earlier  period  it  was  impossible  to  say.  The  building  stood  directly  on  the  bare 
rock,  and  thus,  since  there  was  no  risk  of  the  site  being  sanded  up,  there  was  no  chance  of 
stratification,  howeyer  many  times  it  may  have  been  occupied.  The  whitewashed  walls  had 
in  some  cases  been  replastered  with  a  rougher  coating  of  plain  mud ;  there  were  therefore  two 
stages  of  occupation,  even  though  the  interval  between  them  may  have  been  of  the  shortest ; 
the  bulk  of  the  pottery  found  was  of  the  regular  Blemyan  type,  and  this  may  mean  that  the 
house  as  it  stands  was  of  Blemyan,  perhaps  late  Blemyan,  origin,  though  of  unusual  type,  and 
that  the  subsequent  Christian  occupation  was  short  and  did  little  to  modify  the  building.  The 
south  wall  stood  as  high  as  1.50  m.  The  weathering  had  destroyed  the  mud  plaster  where  this 
was  exposed  and  had  laid  bare  the  rubble  structure  of  the  wall  (PI.  11);  the  north  and  east 
outer  walls  had  suffered  greatly. 

Room  I  had  an  entrance  in  its  southwest  corner  and  gave  access  through  two  doors  to 
room  2  and  through  one  to  room  4.  The  northwest  angle  was  partitioned  off  by  a  low,  rough, 
curved  screen  of  mud  as  if  for  a  bin,  or  to  keep  in  place  some  large  receptacle.  The  north  and 
west  walls  were  of  mud  brick,  the  rest  of  rubble.    The  floor  was  of  mud. 

Room  2.  Opposite  the  two  doors  from  room  i  were  two  others  on  the  east  side  communi- 
cating with  the  staircase  and  with  room  5 ;  at  the  north  end  was  a  screen  wall  of  mud  brick, 
leaving  in  the  centre  a  very  wide  doorway  into  room  3.  In  the  northeast  comer  was  a  small 
rectangular  enclosure  with  a  low  mud  wall,  the  remains  of  a  bin  or  box;  in  the  northwest  corner, 
between  the  doorway  into  room  i  and  the  screen  wall,  was  a  solid  block  of  brickwork  consisting 
of  three  steps,  the  topmost  narrower  than  the  others;  it  seemed  to  be  not  one  of  the  open-air 
staircases  found,  e.  g.,  in  house  2,  but  rather  a  stepped  seat  or  base  for  some  object. 

The  floor  of  the  room  was  made  of  fine  large  sandstone  flags,  well  laid,  and  to  all  appearances 
not  covered  with  mud;  the  walls,  of  rubble  plastered  with  mud,  had  been  whitewashed,  and 
the  whitewash  covered  with  a  later  coarse  mud-rendering.  On  the  floor  was  found  a  broken 
millefiore  bead. 

Room  3.  Entered  from  room  2  and  leading  to  room  4.  As  in  room  2  the  earlier  whitewash 
of  the  walls  had  been  covered  with  a  later  plastering.  The  floor  was  of  mud.  On  the  west 
side  of  the  room  were  found  fragments  from  two  large  store-pots  of  handmade,  hearth-burned 
pottery  with  creamy-pink  surface  whereon  was  a  rough  design  in  red  paint,  and  of  a  large 
clay  chest  similar  to  that  shown  on  PI.  13;  it  was  handmade  and  hearth-burned,  the  painting 
was  red  on  a  light-yellowish  surface,  and  represented  fish.  The  chest  must  once  have  had 
a  lid,  which  was  missing. 

Room  4  may  have  been  an  open  court.    The  outer  walls  are  wholly  ruined  away. 

Room  5.  The  outer  wall,  much  ruined,  was  so  thin  and  of  such  poor  construction  as  to 
suggest  that  it  had  had  at  best  but  a  flat  roof  instead  of  a  vault.  It  was  entered  only  from 
room  2. 

Room  6,  also  much  ruined,  contained  the  staircase,  which,  judging  from  the  small  size  of 
its  central  pillar,  can  only  have  led  to  a  single  upper  floor.  Here  was  found  a  saucer  of  regular 
Coptic  ware,  with  a  design  in  brown  paint  on  a  smooth  white  surface  (PI.  13). 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  POTTERY 


It  was  to  be  expected  that  there  should  be  some  difference  between  the  pottery  found  in  Tomb  and 
the  tombs  and  that  from  the  houses  in  the  town.  Tomb  pottery  in  Egypt  is  usually  of  a  finer  p^^^^ 
kind  than  was  common  in  domestic  use,  and  this  is  as  true  at  Karanog  as  at  other  places.  The 
similarity  was  sufficient  to  establish  the  identity  of  civilization  and  custom;  it  was  impossible 
from  the  broken  fragments  in  the  houses  to  identify  every  form  found  in  the  graves,  but  at 
least  every  class  of  ware  found  in  the  cemetery  was  represented  on  the  town  site.  Painted 
pottery  was  less  in  proportion  to  other  wares,  which  was  precisely  the  point  to  be  expected; 
but  every  kind  of  painted  ware  was  found.  The  difference  between  the  sites  was  that  from 
the  houses  came  types  of  pottery  which  either  did  not  occur  at  all  in  the  graves  or  were  there 
relatively  less  common.  Rough  handmade  pots  undecorated  or  decorated  only  with  rude 
incised  lines,  pots  used  for  cooking  or  such  household  purposes,  and  great  store-jars,  handmade 
and  burnt  in  the  open  hearth,  were  common  in  the  houses  and  rarely  if  ever  were  deposited  in 
the  tombs.  Besides  these  the  town  buildings  produced  a  great  number  of  wheel-made 
undecorated  bowls  such  as  were  used  for  domestic  purposes  and  were  not  considered  proper 
funeral  offerings.  These  two  classes  together  formed,  naturally,  quite  a  large  proportion  of 
the  pottery  found  on  the  town  site,  and  constitute  the  main  difference  between  it  and  the  graves. 
Of  the  types  most  common  in  the  graves,  shape  F  i  was  unusual  in  the  town,  or  else  its  fragments 
could  not  easily  be  identified;  F  iv  was  very  common  both  in  the  plain  and  the  painted  ware; 
F  xii  was  one  of  the  most  usual  forms,  and  so  were  F  xlvi,  xlviii  and  the  allied  shapes;  F  lii 
was  fairly  well  represented;  F  xxxii  was  comparatively  rare,  as  was  F  ix,  one  of  the  commonest 
grave  types;  F  xvii  was  also  not  very  common;  of  the  new  shapes  peculiar  to  the  town  site, 
F  Ixxxii  to  F  Ixxxvi  were  represented  by  very  numerous  examples  showing  many  slight 
divergences  from  type,  while  most  of  the  others  were  represented  by  only  one  or  two  specimens. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  only  a  very  small  part  of  the  town  was  worked,  and  the  conclusions 
reached  as  to  the  proportionate  representation  of  types — as  well  as  other  conclusions — are 
tentative  only,  and  subject  to  correction;  thus  houses  5  and  6  produced  a  far  greater  amount 
of  painted  pottery  than  did  houses  2  or  9,  and  further  excavation  might  upset  any  theory  based 
on  the  mere  number  of  specimens  found.  In  fact,  the  result  arrived  at  is  no  more  than  this: 
that  in  the  town  the  tomb  pottery  is  well  and  fairly  uniformly  represented,  but  the  different 
conditions  naturally  account  for  the  larger  proportion  of  useful  as  opposed  to  decorative  pottery, 
and  for  the  existence  of  a  large  amount  of  domestic  ware  that  was  not  used  as  funeral  furniture. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  people  of  the  town  and  those  of  the  cemetery  are  the  same,  but  they 
used  things  in  their  houses  which  they  did  not  put,  or  put  rarely,  in  their  tombs. 

Numerous  as  the  graves  near  Anibeh  were  and  long  as  was  the  period  which  they  represented,  Chronologi- 
no  evidence  could  be  adduced  for  their  comparative  dating ;  and  the  great  mass  of  pottery  found  "^^^  Evidence. 
in  them  did  not  help  in  this  respect;  nothing  like  a  sequence  relatively  chronological  could  be 
devised  from  it.  In  the  town  site  conditions  were  more  favorable.  During  the  existence  of 
the  town  buildings  were  destroyed  or  fell  into  disrepair  and  were  covered  up  by  later  buildings 
below  the  level  of  whose  floors  the  older  structures,  buried  in  their  own  rubbish,  still  stood, 
often  to  a  considerable  height.    Where  the  floors  of  the  later  houses  were  intact  it  was  obvious 

(41) 


42 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


Chronologi-   that  the  objects  found  below  them  would  be,  upon  the  whole,  earlier  than  those  found  above; 

cal  Evidence.  ^j^^  other  hand,  it  had  to  be  remembered  that  the  interval  of  time  between  the  fall  of  one 
house  and  the  building  of  another  above  it  might  be  very  small,  and  that  such  vicissitudes  were 
not  necessarily  contemporary  upon  different  house-sites :  the  top  level  on  one  might  be  no  later 
than  a  stratum  next  door  which  underlay  the  unbroken  flooring  of  another  house;  and  this 
being  so,  not  only  was  it  perilous  to  argue  from  one  site  to  another,  but  there  was  no  saying 
that  pottery  found  above  the  intact  floor  of  one  building  had  not  got  there  from  the  ruins  of  a 
building  close  by  which  was  actually  earlier  though  less  deeply  buried  than  its  neighbour.  Each 
site  had  therefore  to  be  taken  by  itself,  and  then  could  only  be  adduced  in  evidence  if  the  upper 
floor-levels  were  really  unbroken.  When  once  these  were  broken,  infiltration  might  always 
confuse  argument;  and  without  unbroken  floors  the  argument  from  mere  stratification  and 
depth  of  burial  could  not  stand  for  a  moment.  The  pottery  from  above  and  below  each  intact 
floor  had  to  be  compared,  that  which  was  common  to  both  strata  eliminated,  and  the  result 
compared  with  that  from  other  sites;  very  often  these  results  were  contradictory,  and  in  any 
case  they  are  likely  to  be  weakened  or  upset  by  further  research.  But  at  the  best  they  are  very 
small.  The  Nubian  has  always  been  conservative,  and  the  lapse  of  some  four  hundred  years  is 
not  likely  to  find  much  change  in  him:  indeed  the  difficulty  with  Nubian  pottery  is  more  often 
to  arrive  within  a  thousand  years  of  the  truth. 

Late  and  It  would  certainly  appear  that  the  painted  pottery  with  floral,  animal  or  conventional 

Early  Types,  (jggjgj^g^  which  we  may  call  characteristically  Blemyan,  ran  through  the  whole  period  of  their 
occupation  of  the  country.  It  occurred  ilniformly  in  the  graves,  and  is  found  in  the  town  at 
the  highest  as  well  as  at  the  lowest  levels.  In  the  later  period,  however,  it  does  seem  to  grow 
less  common;  on  the  upper  floor-levels  it  figures  in  smaller  proportions  and  is  to  a  large  extent 
ousted  by  the  plain  wares  in  which  open  bowl  shapes  and  ribbed  fabrics  predominate.  The 
ribbing  of  pots  is  by  no  means  necessarily  late;  thus  from  the  presumably  early  grave  G  187 
we  have  the  closely  ribbed  form  F  xxxiii ;  and  ribbed  household  pots  are  not  uncommon  in  the 
deeper  house-sites;  but  on  the  surface,  and  above  top  floor-levels,  the  amount  of  ribbed  ware 
is  vastly  greater  and  the  shapes  to  which  ribbing  is  applied  are  clearly  much  more  numerous, 
even  though  they  cannot  all  be  ascertained.  A  pot  cannot,  because  ribbed,  be  assigned  to  a 
late  date;  but  ribbing  is  more  characteristic  of  a  late  date  than  of  an  early. 

One  fabric  is  found  at  Karanog,  as  on  the  town  site  at  Shablul,  which  does  not  appear  in 
the  tombs.  This  is  a  white-faced  ware  with  a  very  hard,  smooth  and  slightly  lustrous  surface 
very  different  from  the  rather  mealy  surface  of  the  white-faced  vessels  (mostly  F  xlviii  and  xlix) , 
which  were  found  in  the  cemeteries.  Pots  of  this  fabric  are  rather  thick  and  clumsy;  the  clay, 
however — a  red  clay — is  well  levigated  and  hard;  the  white  is  either  a  dead  white  or  takes  in 
patches  a  slight  orange  shade,  which  brings  the  ware  into  relation  with  the  similarly  hard-faced, 
cream-coloured  or  lemon-coloured  ware  of  Coptic  sites.  Not  infrequently  the  surface  is  decorated 
with  a  large  and  careless  cross-hatching  in  red.  This  fabric  occurs  only  in  the  upper  levels, 
but  that  it  is  not  due  only  to  subsequent  occupation  of  the  site  by  Coptic  settlers  is  shown  by 
the  fact  of  a  piece  being  found  below  the  unbroken  floor  of  the  yard  of  K  H  4,  within  the  walls 
of  the  earlier  underlying  house.  Probably  it  belongs  to  the  latest  period,  that  of  transition  from 
the  Blemyan  to  the  Coptic. 

Coarse  linear  ornament,  though  naturally  found  on  common  pots  of  all  periods,  is  very 
usual  in  what  we  must  regard  as  the  later  wares.  Thus  in  the  upper  house-levels  were  found 
numerous  examples  of  F  lii  and  liii  of  a  dark  red  haematitic  ware;  but  instead  of  the  black 
floral  decoration  of  the  tomb  specimens,  these  always  had  below  the  rim  either  diagonal  stripes 
arranged  in  groups  of  two  or  three  or  else  loose  festoons  in  black  and  yellowish- white  paint. 
In  late  undecorated  vessels  of  red  haematitic  ware  the  rim  is  occasionally  accentuated  by  a  dull 
line  of  blue-black  matt  colour. 


THE  POTTERY 


43 


Also  confined  to  the  top  levels  is  a  ware,  mostly  used  for  flat  bowls,  though  sometimes  for  Late  and 
deeper  vessels,  with  a  bright  lemon-coloured  surface,  hard  but  more  grained  than  that  of  the  ^'^^^y^yP^^- 
white  ware  already  mentioned,  of  which  it  might  otherwise  be  regarded  as  a  variant.  The 
fabric  is  not  to  be  distinguished  from  that  common  on  early  Coptic  sites.  The  bowls,  in  which 
it  is  most  usual,  have  sometimes  a  plain  flat  edge  like  a  modern  dinner-plate,  sometimes  a  deeply 
grooved  edge  with  pendulous  outer  flange  like  the  Roman  mortaria  (see  F  Ixxxii,  Ixxxiv) ;  in 
these  bowls  the  yellow  surface  is  usually  confined  to  the  inner  face,  the  outer  either  being  of  the 
plain  clay  or  having  a  brown  wash,  but  in  some  cases  the  yellow  is  on  the  outside  and  the  inside 
is  white.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  whereas  an  orange  tint  is  not  uncommon  on  the  painted  pottery 
more  typical  of  the  early  period,  and  this  seems  to  have  for  its  base  a  red  colour,  the  late  yellow 
has  for  its  base  a  white,  and  yellow  and  white  fade  imperceptibly  into  each  other.  The  difference 
is  quite  marked  when  two  pieces  of  the  respective  wares  are  set  side  by  side.  Moreover,  the 
late  yellow  colour  is  in  many  cases  less  homogeneous  with  the  clay  it  covers;  it  flakes  off  like 
a  slip  and  is  quite  opaque.  In  one  late  mottled  orange  fragment  a  red  had  been  thinly  washed 
over  a  white  slip  and  apparently  rag  burnished;  some  of  the  lemon-coloured  wares  seem  to 
be  similarly  prepared  with  a  yellow  wash  over  the  wet  white  slip,  but  the  change  of  surface-colour 
may  be  due  to  the  burnishing  process  and  the  firing  rather  than  to  an  actual  application  of 
colour.  This  yellowish-white  paint  is  also  much  used  for  decoration  on  a  red  ground;  thus  it 
is  common  on  vessels  of  shapes  F  Hi,  liii,  and  on  a  late  fragment  from  K  H  4  6  occurs  in  spots 
punctuating  a  black  reticulated  pattern  on  red.  It  does  not,  however,  entirely  oust  white 
paint  in  decoration.  Thus  from  K  H  4  8a  came  a  very  dark  red  burnished  pot  with  a  necklace 
band  of  short  vertical  stripes  in  matt  white;  and  a  fragment  of  F  xlviii,  also  from  K  H  4  6,  has 
a  white  ground  covered  with  a  reticulated  pattern  in  broad  red  lines.  Decoration  in  colour 
on  a  white  ground  runs  right  through  the  period;  certainly  it  is  very  common  in  the  early  period, 
but  in  the  later  also,  in  spite  of  the  general  tendency  to  simplify,  we  find  fragments  of  an  elaborate 
design  (F  v)  of  asps  and  winged  knots  in  black  and  red  on  a  white  ground;  of  a  cup  (F  xlviii), 
white  with  a  broad  purple  band  whereon  delicate  trefoil  buds ;  a  saucer  (F  xlix)  seen  from  inside 
with  its  mealy  white  surface,  red  rim  and  two  narrow  red  bands,  would  seem  too  to  carry  on  the 
early  tradition,  though  its  hard  lemon-coloured  outer  surface  links  it  on  to  the  later  levels  in 
which  it  was  found.  In  fact,  painted  pottery  survived  in  later  Blemyan  days  and  is  not  to  be 
distinguished  from  its  forerunners ;  but  it  is  less  common  than  formerly.  A  pot  (F  v)  with  a 
very  bold  grape-cluster  and  tendril  design  with  running  circles  above,  done  in  black,  purplish- 
red  and  thin  yellowish-white  on  a  reddish  haematite  ground  belonged  actually  to  the  later  but 
typologically  to  the  earlier  time:  a  similar  pot  with  lozenges  alternately  red  and  black-hatched 
on  a  lemon-coloured  ground  though  not  without  parallels  from  the  tombs  which  one  would 
be  inclined  to  put  down  to  an  earlier  date  also  belongs  to — and  agrees  tolerably  well  with — 
the  later. 

The  plain  festoon  design  has  been  mentioned  as  being  common  on  late  F  Hi  pots:  it  is  not 
confined  to  this  shape.  For  instance,  it  occurs  in  red  on  the  white  inner  face  of  a  shallow  flanged 
"mortarium"  bowl  (F  Ixxxiii) :  in  purplish-black  on  red  (associated  herewith  a  dark  rim-band) 
on  a  wide-mouthed  pot  of  a  type  not  met  with  in  the  tombs,  (rim-section  D) :  and  upon  a  fragment 
of  a  ribbed  pot  with  rosette  ornament  in  relief.  As  it  also  occurs  commonly  upon  Coptic  pottery 
we  must  take  it  to  be  a  transition  motive,  though  the  finding  of  one  F  Hi  specimen  (black  and 
white  festoons)  underneath  the  latest  floor-level  of  site  K  H  4  shows  that  its  development  falls 
well  within  the  Blemyan  period. 

Most  of  these  chronological  criteria  are  deduced  from  very  scanty  evidence:  there  is,  Stamped 
however,  one  development  of  the  potter's  art  and  the  fashions  of  it  which  is  thoroughly  well  Wares. 
established,  and  this  is  the  prevalence  in  the  latest  period  of  the  rosette  ornament  in  relief: — 
after  the  vessel  is  complete  little  lumps  of  clay  are  pressed  onto  the  surface,  at  regular  intervals 


44 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


Stamped  round  the  rim,  and  these  are  stamped  with  a  die  in  the  form  of  a  rosette.  Quantities  of  fragments 
Wares.  ^j^^g  ornamented  were  found,  and  in  view  of  their  number  it  was  worth  noticing  that  the  varieties 
of  stamps  are  very  few:  the  impressions  are  rough  and  the  patterns  not  always  distinguishable; 
but  only  two  or  three  different  dies  could  be  detected;  this  is  perhaps  an  argument  for  a  local 
pottery  manufacturer,  or  for  importation  from  a  single  centre  of  produce,  as  well  as 
for  a  comparatively  short  life-time  for  the  particular  ware.  The  vessels  seem  as  a  rule  to  be  bowls 
or  wide-mouthed  jars,  and  the  majority  of  them  are  deeply  ribbed — another  characteristic  of  the 
later  pottery:  in  one  case  the  rosette  in  relief  is  associated  with  impressed  ornament.  Impressed 
or  stamped  ornament  as  such  cannot  be  assigned  to  one  rather  than  to  another  period,  though 
the  pottery  on  which  it  occurs  is  often  more  of  an  early  type,  such  as  the  mealy-faced  thin  white 
cups  of  F  xlviii,  e.  g.,  8669  (iv.  PI.  87):  an  example  with  stamped  snakes  between  red  painted 
bands  (a  common  device,  cf.  Nos.  8672  (iv.  PI.  88),  9039,  etc.),  was  found  in  the  lowest  levels  of 
K  H  4  under  unbroken  floors:  on  the  other  hand,  the  instance  quoted  with  relief  rosettes,  and 
a  lemon-coloured  fragment  with  stamped  concentric  circles  and  a  fragment  of  a  bowl  with  plain 
stamps  arranged  in  zigzags,  like  the  first  but  lacking  rosettes  in  relief,  both  found  above 
the  latest  (intact)  floor-level  on  the  same  house  site,  would  show  that  the  fashion  lasted  a  long 
while.  In  contrast  to  this  is  an  early  fragment  (K  H  5,  7)  having  a  band  of  herring-bone  incised 
pattern,  deeply  cut  with  a  metal  knife  in  the  wet  clay. 

Of  handmade  pottery  most  was  rough  and  did  not  lend  itself  to  classification.  Very 
common  throughout,  and  not  least  so  in  the  latest  period,  is  the  squat  jar  (F  v)  with  a  slightly 
curled  rim,  of  rough  ill-levigated  black  clay,  burned  in  the  open  fire,  often  with  some  rude 
decoration,  such  as  a  pair  of  hatched  triangles,  incised  upon  the  shoulder.  These  pots  are  not 
burnished.  A  curious  fragment,  late,  was  that  of  a  shallow  bowl  moulded  inside  a  basket 
— according  to  the  modern  Nubian  fashion — the  inside  black  and  slightly  burnished,  the  outside 
rough  and  showing  all  the  pattern  of  the  basket.  The  finer  black  wares  in  the  house  sites  as  in 
the  tombs  were  rare:  when  they  could  be  dated  at  all  they  were  early,  but  there  were  too 
many  undateable  specimens  for  this  to  be  considered  a  rule.  From  site  K  H  5  came  a  fragment 
(PI.  13)  showing  a  gazelle  in  punctured  work:  from  a  low  level  in  K  H  4  came  a  bold  and 
interesting  linear  design  (PI.  13)  and  a  rougher  example  of  a  cross-hatched  band:  while  the 
same  site  produced  a  late  example  of  well -burnished  undecorated  black  ware.  In  contrast  to 
this  hand-done  incision  is  the  "engine-turned"  ornament  of  some  of  the  red  pottery  which, 
judging  from  analogy,  must  be  late;  for  in  Coptic,  as  in  the  modern  Aswan  and  Assiut  pottery, 
this  "lathe-turned"  or  "engine-turned"  ornament  is  very  common. 
New  Pottery  On  Plate  14  is  continued  the  index  of  Blemyan  pottery  forms,  of  which  the  first  sixty-nine 
Forms.  numbers  were  figured  in  vol.  iv.  Nos.  Ixx,  Ixxi,  Ixxii,  Ixxiii  are  from  Haifa  and  were  found  in 
graves  of  the  New  Empire  re-used  in  Romano-Nubian  times: 


Handmade 
Wares. 


F  Ixx.  Plain  red  clay,  height  0.29.  m.,  H  4:  also  a  broken  example  from  H  5. 
F  Ixxi.  Ochrous  brown  surface  with  brown  spot-wreath  on  shoulder.    Broken.  H  6 

F  Ixxii.  Light  pinkish-drab  clay,  haematite  wash,  height  0.145  H  i7 

F  Ixxiii.  Bowl  with  small  tubular  handle,  plain   red  clay  with  haematite  wash, 

unburnished.    The  remaining  forms  are  from  the  town  site  of  Karanog.  H  4 

F  Ixxiv.  A  tall  cylindrical  stand  of  rough  red  ware,  height  0.29  m.  House  2 

F  Ixxv.  A  squat  ring-stand  of  rough  red  ware,  height  0.1 1  m.,  diameter  0.20  m. 

at  base.    Fragment.  House  5 

F  Ixxvi.  Dark  brownish-red  ware  with  haematite  surface  of  the  same  colour,  finely 

burnished.    Height  0.095  House  4 

F  Ixxvii.  Rough  red  clay  with  haematite  surface,  unburnished,  height  0.26  m.,  91 17.  House  5 
F  Ixxviii.  Strainer  of  very  fine  white  ware,  smooth  white  surface  with  reddish-brown 

spot- wreath  below  rim.    Fragments  only.  House  2. 


THE  POTTERY 


45 


F  Ixxix.  Plain  red  ware,  unburnished,  with  small  white  circles  below  rim.  Fragments 

only.  House  2. 

In  the  same  house  were  found  fragments  of  a  similar  spouted  bowl,  with 

a  flat  rim,  of  red  ware  covered  with  cream-coloured  slip  on  which  was  a  bold 

trefoil-bud  wreath  in  red  and  purple. 
F  Ixxx.  Small  bowl  of  fine  light-coloured  clay  painted  with  bands  of  red  and  black. 

The  walls  very  thin  and  skilfully  turned:  base  missing.    Height  c.  0.06  m.        House  4. 
F  Ixxxi.  Plain  red  ware  with  haematite  surface  unburnished,  the  surface  rather  soft 

and  decayed.    Lathe-grooves  round  rim.    The  shape  resembles  closely  one  of 

the  common  terra  sigillata  types.    Height  0.05  m.  House  i. 

F  Ixxxii.  Flat  bowl  like  a  mortarium;  rather  rough  plain  red  clay.    Height  0.13  m., 

diameter  0.38  m.  House  2. 

F  Ixxxiii.  Bowl,  like  a  mortarium,  of  reddish  clay  with  buff  surface:  outside  plain; 

inside,  the  rim  and  a  row  of  festoons  with  band  below  coloured  red.    A  late 

example.    Height  0.105  m.,  diameter  0.22  m.  House  7. 

F  Ixxxiv.  Fine  pink  clay  with  haematite  wash,  burnished.    Height  0.052  m.,  diameter 

0.16  m.  House  7. 

From  the  same  house  site  came  two  rather  coarse  variants  of  the  type 

with  more  perpendicular  walls. 
F  Ixxxvi.  Fine  red  ware  with  haematite  surface  well  burnished.    Height  0.035  m., 

diameter  0.15  m.  House  8. 


New  Pottery 
Forms. 


Fragments  of  bowls  and  other  open  vessels  were  very  numerous  but  the  types  could  not  be 
definitely  ascertained.  The  three  rims,  A,  B,  C,  drawn  at  the  foot  of  the  form-index  show  some 
of  the  commonest  forms .  A  was  of  plain  red-brown  ware ;  B  of  light  red  ware  with  darker  brownish 
surface  and  yellowish-white  festoons  painted  below  the  rim;  C  was  of  plain  red  ware.  The  last 
rim-section,  D,  came  from  a  very  large  pot  of  rough  red  ware  with  a  little  festoon  pattern  round 
the  rim,  below  which  was  a  band  of  pinched  ornament  in  relief. 


CHAPTER  VI 


(a)  DECORATIVE  STONEWORK 


Carved 

Openwork 

Screens. 


Examples 
from  Haifa. 


Upon  almost  every  Blemyan  site  that  we  have  visited  we  have  found  fragments  of  screens 
or  windows  of  carved  sandstone.  At  Karanog  only  four  pieces  were  turned  up:  in  the  castle 
(room  8)  a  small  fragment  of  a  twining  stalk  from  a  floral  design  and  (room  7)  a  lotus  flower; 
in  house  i  the  lotus  flower  figured  on  PI.  17  and  in  house  4  another  small  floral  piece.  But 
though  the  town  produced  so  little  of  this  nature,  that  little  cannot  adequately  be  illustrated 
without  reference  to  the  richer  finds  from  other  places,  and  therefore  it  seems  best  to  publish 
here  all  that  we  have  of  this  characteristically  Blemyan  work  from  whatever  site  it  comes. 

The  best  examples  hitherto  were  found  in  and  about  a  small  Blemyan  chapel  built  on  a 
hill  near  Haifa  (see  vol.  vii,  ''Buhen,"  ch.  viii) ;  the  fragments  were  scattered  far  and  wide  over 
the  steep  slopes  of  the  hill  as  if  in  consequence  of  some  deliberate  act  of  destruction ;  they  had  in 
many  cases  suffered  severely  from  the  weather,  and  the  pieces  that  survived,  numerous  though 
they  were,  did  not  suffice,  unfortunately,  to  show  with  any  certainty  what  the  original  design 
had  been.  Two  if  not  three  screens  are  represented;  in  two  of  them  the  principal  motive  was 
gryphons '  heads  with  long  straight  necks  (the  bodies  are  lost) ,  while  numerous  floral  fragments 
chiefly  of  the  conventionalized  lotus  type  may  have  been  in  combination  with  these,  or  may 
have  been  confined  to  a  separate  panel.  A  number  of  uraeus  snakes  probably  belong  with  the 
floral  element;  a  foot,  a  leg,  and  a  hand  holding  a  staff  show  that  the  human  figure  was  also 
introduced.  Each  screen  was  cut  out  of  a  single  slab  of  sandstone,  and  formed  a  rectangle, 
considerably  higher  than  it  was  wide  (probably  0.78  m.  by  0.54  m.),  divided  by  horizontal  bars 
into  zones  0.20  m.  high,  wherein  apparently  the  same  design  was  repeated.  The  original  slab 
was  eight  centimetres  thick  and  the  solid  frame  stood  out  only  about  three  millimetres  above 
the  plane  ot  the  decorated  field,  but  the  latter  was  cut  back  behind  so  that  the  fret- work  had  a 
depth  of  four  or  four  and  a  half  centimetres  only.  The  cutting  seems  to  have  been  done  with  a 
saw  and  is  at  a  perfect  right  angle  to  the  plane  of  the  surface.  The  actual  cutting  out  of  the 
tracery  is  very  fine,  some  of  the  stalks  and  tendrils  of  the  floriate  work  being  no  more  than  four 
of  five  millimetres  wide,  which  considering  the  nature  of  the  sandstone  employed  is  a  considerable 
technical  achievement,  and  the  points  of  attachment  and  support  seem  to  have  been  remarkably 
few;  the  delicacy  thus  obtained  was  heightened  by  the  surface-carving  of  detail  and  the  rounding 
off  of  edges,  which  removed  any  impression  of  flatness  and  emphasized  the  fineness  of  the  lines. 
Sometimes  by  cutting  down  the  surface  the  actual  plane  is  altered  and  a  further  appearance  of 
roundness  is  given  as  the  minor  twigs  and  tendrils  recede  behind  the  more  important  features 
of  the  design.  Naturally  the  finer  tracery  has  suffered  most  from  the  wanton  destruction  and 
the  weather  to  which  all  has  been  exposed,  but  the  comparatively  large  fragment  of  a  curving 
lotus-stem  in  the  lower  right-hand  corner  of  PI.  16,  shows  how  fine  was  the  drawing  and  how 
skilful  the  cutting  of  the  stone.  The  gryphon  screens  were  by  reason  of  their  subject  somewhat 
heavier  in  treatment  than  the  floral  one  (supposing  that  to  have  been  distinct  from  them),  but 
gave  more  scope  for  surface  modelling,  which  is  quite  well  executed  so  far  as  the  heads  are 
concerned:  it  is  a  pity  that  the  total  disappearance  of  the  bodies  makes  it  impossible  to 
realize  the  original  appearance  of  the  screen. 

(46) 


DECORATIVE  STONEWORK 


47 


A  number  of  fragments  from  Faras  show  a  heavy  but  impressive  design  of  highly  Examples 
conventionalized  lotus  flowers  (PI.  17).    Here  too  recurs  the  same  gryphons'  head  motive  that^''"'**  Pf^^c^^ 
we  have  met  at  Haifa;    another  fragment  gives  the  figure  of  the  lion-headed  god  Arsenuphis. 
A  small  piece  was  picked  up  at  Gebel  Adda. 

The  only  Egyptian  parallel  for  these  tracery  stone  screens  is  given  by  a  tracery  window  of 
Rameses  HI  from  Medinet  Habu;  but  this  is  an  isolated  example,  which  neither  for  date  nor 
for  workmanship  can  be  brought  into  comparison  with  the  Blemyan  screens.  The  latter  must 
rather  be  considered  a  purely  Meroitic  development  which  flourished  in  Nubia  during  the 
Blemyan  period;  and  they  give  further  evidence  of  the  heights  which  in  various  arts  were  attained 
by  this  desert  people. 

The  little  sandstone  capital  illustrated  on  PI.  17  comes  not  from  a  screen  but  from  a  lintel,  Capital  from 
as  is  shown  by  the  precisely  similar  but  more  complete  piece  found  at  Faras.  The  cornice 
in  this  is  supported  by  a  capital  at  either  end  and  along  it  runs  a  row  of  uraeus  snakes ;  in  the 
centre  is  the  sun's  disc  flanked  by  uraei.  A  lintel  found  in  the  Karanog  cemetery,  coming  from 
one  of  the  "approaches"  or  miniature  chapels  attached  to  the  superstructures  of  the  tombs,  has 
the  same  uraeus-fianked  disc  carved  upon  it  in  relief,  and  upon  another  lintel,  also  from  the 
cemetery,  there  are  faint  traces  of  the  same  device  executed  in  paint.  This  might  be  taken  as  a 
link  connecting  with  the  Blemyan  period  proper  the  gateway  and  the  stone  temple  of  Kasr  Ibrim 
where  the  disc  with  its  supporting  snakes  forms  the  only  decoration.  The  capitals  from  Faras 
and  Karanog  are  of  a  highly  developed  type  closely  resembling  some  of  the  latest  work  at  Philae, 
at  Kalabsheh,  at  the  temple  of  Dendur  built  by  Augustus,  and  in  the  Meroitic  temple  at  Nagaa, 
where  also  is  the  line  of  uraeus  snakes  that  appears  on  the  Faras  lintel.  In  all  these  is  clearly 
evident  the  debt  to  Greek  art,  whose  importance  has  already  been  remarked  upon  in  dealing  with 
Blemyan  pottery.  During  the  more  peaceful  Ptolemaic  period  architectural  decoration  in  the 
north  and  in  the  south  of  the  Nile  valley  developed  uniformly,  subject  as  it  was  to  the  same 
Greek  influence  working  upon  the  common  inheritance  of  Egyptian  models.  After  that  period, 
when  connection  between  the  two  countries  was  severed,  the  style  was  in  each  stereotyped 
enough  to  endure,  or  if  it  progressed  to  progress  along  much  the  same  lines;  we  are  therefore 
not  justified  in  supposing  that  because  a  building  in  Nubia  or  in  the  Sudan  resembles  one  of 
Roman  date  in  Roman  Egypt  it  is  an  imitation  of  it,  influenced  by  it,  or  subsequent  to  it  in 
date. 


48 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


(b)  OSTRAKA 

Thirty-three  ostraka  were  found,  of  which  the  majority  were  very  fragmentary,  containing 
only  two  or  three  characters  apiece.  They  were  generally  written  upon  pieces  of  amphorae 
(F  xii)  whose  smooth  surface  is  better  adapted  to  writing  than  are  the  rougher  native  wares ;  the 
ink  is  sometimes  black,  sometimes  white.  Hand  copies  of  all  the  more  important  specimens  have 
kindly  been  made  for  me  by  Mr.  F.  LI.  Griffith  and  are  published  on  Plates  18-20.  The  description 
of  these  is  as  follows: 


Plate  18. 

Plate  19. 
Plate  20. 


Fig.  I.    Written  in  white  ink  on  a  red  sherd. 

Fig.  2.    Written  in  black  ink  on  a  red  sherd. 

Fig.  3.    Written  in  black  ink  on  a  red  sherd ;  the  writing  obscure. 


K  H  2.  5. 
K  H  2.  12. 
K  H  2.  21. 


Written  in  white  ink  on  a  red  sherd:  the  left-hand  ends  of  the  lines 
are  probably  broken  away,  the  right-hand  ends  are  complete. 

Fig.  I.    A  and  B.    Red  sherd  inscribed  on  both  sides  in  black  ink. 
Fig.  2.    Written  in  black  ink  on  a  fragment  of  yellowish  amphora; 
complete. 

Fig.  3.    AandB.    Red  sherd  inscribed  on  both  sides  in  black  ink. 

Fig.  4.    Written  in  white  ink  on  a  red  sherd. 

Fig.  5.  A  and  B.  Red  sherd  inscribed  on  both  sides  in  white  ink:  in 
the  upper  line  of  the  reverse  (B)  one  letter  seems  to  be  missing 
at  the  right-hand  end.  South  of  K  H  6 

Fig.  6.    Written  in  black  ink  on  a  red  sherd;  the  right-hand  ends  of 

the  lines  appear  to  be  complete.  K  H  5.  i 

Fig.  7.    Written  in  black  on  a  red  sherd;  complete.  KH  3 


KH5.  5. 


K  H  2.  21. 

KH5.  13- 
KH  2.  5. 


CHAPTER  VII 


CATALOGUE 


Of  Blemyan  Objects,  Chiefly  from  Karan6g,  now  in  the  University  Museum. 


9101. 

9102. 
0103. 
9104. 

9105. 

9106. 
9107. 
9108. 
9109. 

9110. 

QUI. 

9II2. 

9113- 
9II4. 


9115- 


91 16. 


9117. 


Bronze  coin  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  found 
at  Haifa,  loose  in  the  sand,  north  of  the 
fortress  of  Buhen. 

Bronze  coin  of  Cleopatra  VII,  found  close 
to  the  "Roman  temple,  "  at  Buhen. 
Bronze  coin  of  the  Emperor  Nero,  struck 
at  Alexandria,  found  at  Karanog.  K  H  8. 
Bronze  knife,  the  handle  partly  bi-oken, 
o.io  m.  long,  Karandg  Castle,  room  10. 
PI.  15. 

Iron  finger-ring,  bezel  much  corroded ;  found 
just  outside  the  gateway  of  the  castle  of 
Karandg. 

Bronze  finger-ring;  on  the  bezel  a  few 
indistinct  marks.  K  H  3. 

Iron  staple  (?)  slightly  decorated.    /.  o.iom. 
Karandg  Castle,  room  13. 
Bronze  tubular  box  with  lid.     h.  0.08  m. 
d.  0.014  rn- 

Sickle  of  iron,  /.  0.105  m.,  with  leather 
sheath,  from  Karandg  Castle,  room  9. 
PI.  IS- 

Cylindrical  wood  kohlpot,  lacquered  black, 
yellow  and  red.  h.  0.104  n^-  Karandg 
Castle,  room  2.     PI.  15. 

Fragments  of  wooden  vessel  lacquered 
yellow  and  black  with  sgraffiato  floral 
decoration.  Karandg  Castle,  room  4. 
PI.  IS 

Figurine  of  Bes.  very  poor  green  glaze. 

K  H  6. 

Steatite  scarab,  bright  green  glaze;  below, 
a  scorpion  (?)  roughly  incised.  K  H  6. 

Odd  glass  and  glaze  beads  and  fragments  of 
glass,  including  millefiori  green,  yellow  and 
red;  deep  blue  transparent;  and  enamelled 
glass  with  flowers  in  green,  blue  and  yellow, 
and  red  band,  probably  Arabic.  From 
various  sites  in  Karandg  town. 
Terra-cotta  chest  0.74  by  0.40  by  0.46  m., 
of  rough  handmade  open-fire-burned  clav 
with  light  pink  engobbage  wash  and  design 
in  haematitic  red  of  panels  and  crosses: 
Christian  work.    PI.  13.  K  H  q. 

Pot,  most  of  rim  gone,  handmade,  of  rough 
brown  clay,  open-fir  -burned ;  red  haematite 
surface  whereon  very  rough  design  in  white 
paint.    Almost  globular  shape,    /t.  0.27  m. 

K  H  4  a. 

Vase  F  Ixxvii.  h.  0.26  m.  Wheelmade,  red 
clay,  plain,  found  in  long  yard  north  of 
house.  K  H  5. 


9118. 


9119. 


9120. 


9121. 


91 22. 


9123. 


9124. 

A.B.C 

9125. 


91 26. 

9127. 

9128. 

9129. 

9130. 
9131. 
9132. 

9133- 

9134- 

9135- 

9136. 

9137- 
9138. 


Chalice  F  Ixxvi  of  red  clay  with  brown-red 
surface,  burnished,    h.  0.095  rn- 

K  H  4. 

Straight-sided  cup,  brownish  clay.  h.  0.05  m. 
d.  0.09  in:  date  doubtful. 

Karandg  Castle,  room  5. 
Straight-sided  saucer,  coarse  brownish  clay 
with  light  pinkish-drab  engobbage.  /j.  0.02  m. 
d.  0.10  m. :  date  doubtful. 
Lamp,  roughly  circular,  round  nozzle,  con- 
centric circles'  light  pink  clay,  haematite 
wash.  K  H  2. 

Lamp,  round,  pear-shaped ;  light  clay,  design 
of  raised  dots  and  doves  (?)  ?  Christian? 
PI.  13.  K  H  4- 

Lamp,  long,  pear-shaped,  raised  line  and 
dot  design;  rough  brownish  clay.  Karandg 
Castle,  the  light- well.  PI.  13. 
Fragments  of  rough  clay  figurines,  painted 
with  black  marks  on  light  haematitic 
ground.    PI.  13.  K  H  2  and  3. 

Fragments  of  pottery  from  the  town  site 
of  Karandg;  most  of  these  are  dated  and 
are  the  type  specimens  referred  to  in  ch.  v. 
Very  fragmentary  bowl  of  poor  blue  glaze; 
found  on  the  surface  at  Karandg  town. 
h  0.08  m.  d.  0.15  m. 
Stone  stamp  0.07  by  0.05  m.    PI.  15. 

K  C  19. 

Stone  stamp  0.097  by  0.045  ni-    PI-  '5- 

K  C  9 
PI.  15 
K  C  5 
K  C  9 
K  C  14 
PI.  15 
K  C  4 

Fragment  from  stone  tracery  screen:  lotus 
flower.    A.  0.12  m.    PI.  17.  K  H  i 

Small  stone  capital  from  cornice,  h.  0.09  m 
PI.   17.  K  H  S 

Numerous  fragments  of  stone  tracery  screens 
from  hill  shrine  at  Buhen.    PI.  16. 
Fragments  of  stone  tracery  screens  from 
Faras.     PI.  17. 

Sandstone  statuette  of  a  hawk;  very  rough 
work.  K  H  2 

Stone  weight  inscribed  on  two  of  its  sides 

p|^P^'and/V\ 

Karandg  Castle,  room  15. 


Stone  stamp,  circular,    d.  0.045  m. 

Stone  stamp,  0.04  by  0.014  ™- 

Stone  stamp,  0.05  by  0.035 

Mud  jar-sealing  stamped  IAAP12N. 


(49) 


INDEX 


Aezanas,  6 
Akhmim,  9 

Alexander  Severus,  ostrakon  dated  to,  4,  38 
Alexandria,  4,  8 
Am^ra,  4 

Anibeh,  i,  2,  4,  10,  29,  41 

Arabic  MSS.,  15,  25 

Arches  in  Blemyan  architecture,  13 

Architecture,  periods  in,  2,  3,  5,  to,  ii,  47,  and  in 

the  detailed  descriptions  of  houses,  4,  5, 

6  and  8 
Areika,  11,  27,  30 
Arsenuphis,  representation  of,  46 
Aswan,  monastery  at,  12 
Augustus,  temple  of,  47 

Ba  statuettes,  8,  29 

Begrash,  i 

Bell,  Miss  G.  L.,  12 

Berzelia,  5 

Bes,  figurine  of,  36 

Brickwork,  10,  11 

Christian  remains,  see  Coptic 
Coptic  MSS.,  4,  5,  15,  21 

Copts,  traces  of  occupation  of  Karan^g  by,  3,  4,  5, 
17.  18,  23,  30,  36,  39,  40 

Dendur,  46 

District,  physical  changes  in  character  of,  i,  2,  5 

Faras,  5,  10,  46 
Floor  laying,  12 

Gebel  Adda,  5,  10,  46 
Georgios,  5 
Graffiti,  20 

Griffith,  Mr.  F.  LI.,  4,  48 
Haifa,  I,  5,  (10),  38,  44,  46 
Ibrim,  I,  2,  5,  10,  29,  46 


Jar  sealings,  7,  15,  16,  17,  18,  19,  22 
Justinian,  3,  4 

Kalabsheh,  46 
Kara,  i 

Maximinus,  3,  6 

Nagaa,  temple  compared  with  Faras,  40 
[     Narses,  4 

Nero,  coin  of,  found  at  Karan^g,  4,  37 
Nobades,  4,  6 

Olympiodorus,  i,  6  sq. 
Osiris  amulet,  17 

Ostraka,  3,  4,  17.  28,  29,  30,  31.  33,  34,  35,  3O, 
38,  48 

Petronius,  5 
Pezeme,  4 
Philae,  4,  46 
Phoinikon,  i 

Reisner,  Dr.  G.  A.,  30 

St.  Simeon,  vaulting  in  monastery  of,  1 2 

Senouti,  monastery  of,  9 

Shabldl,  10,  15,  42 

Sheikh  Daoud,  i,  2,  5,  10,  29 

Silko,  evidence  for  his  campaigns,  3,  4,  15 

Sisinnius,  legend  of,  5,  15 

Stone  building,  lack  of,  at  Karanog,  5,  10 

Stone  dressing,  dated  types  of,  10 

Stone  herring-bone  building,  38 

Stone  tracery  windows,  18,  25,  27,  36,  ch.  vi 

Thompson,  Sir  Herbert,  5 
Tomas,  i,  2 

Ukheidar,  vaulting  in  palace  of,  1 2 
Vaulting  systems,  12,  13 


(51) 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  1 


View  from  KaranSg  Castle  looking  towards  Kasr  Ibritn. 


Se$  p.  2 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  2 


View  from  Kasr  Ibrim  looking  towards  Karanfig. 


* 


Karandg  Castle  from  the  nortliwest. 


See  p.  £ 


KARAXOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  3 


The  Castle :  Restored  elevation  of  the  west  face. 


The  Castle:    The  west  face. 


See  p.  S 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  4 


The  Castle :    The  northeast  corner. 


The  Castle:    The  east  face  showing  the  repaired  gateway. 


See  p.  S 


KARAXOG,  THE  TOWN 


The  Castle :    Niche  and  doorways  in  room  14. 


See  p.  20 


House  5:    Rooin.s  IJ  ai  'l  1.;,  looking  towards  11. 

See  p.  35 


See  pp.  28-30 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  10 


House  8 :    General  view  looking  west. 


House  8 :    Room  13. 


See  pp.  37-39 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  11 


House  9  :    Looking  west. 

See  p.  40 


Kasr  Ihrim  from  the  south,  showing  the  podium  of  a 
temple  (?)  Incorporated  in  the  wall. 


See  p.  5 


See  p.  5 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  13 


Lauiiip,  incised  jiottpvy,  and  painted  pottery  chest.    (House  8.) 


See  p.  4/f 


Index  of  new  pottery  forms,  showing  interior,  exterior,  and  section. 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  15 


Lacquered  wooden  toilet  boxes.  Iron  sickle  with  leather  handle. 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  16 


Fragments  of  stone  tracery  screens  from  Haifa. 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


Stone  lintel  from  Faras. 


KARAXOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  18 


4.  ^ 


Fig.  1. 


Fig.  2. 


m   •  0 


See  p.  48 


Fig.  3. 
Meroitic  Ostraka. 


KARAXOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  19 


/9 


5  ^  -V* 


^-^^  -V^ 


ii^y/  5  ,^  V  ^ 


See  p.  48. 


Meroitic  Ostrakon. 


iANOc;,    IHK  TOWN 


Fig.  1  A. 


5^  \  } 


Fig.  1  B. 


Fig.  2. 


Fia.  3  A. 


Nee  />.  4S. 


Fig.  3  B. 


Fig.  4. 


Fig.  5  A. 


Fin.  5  B. 


Fig.  6. 


Fig.  7. 


IVIeroitic  Ostraka. 


KARAXOG,  THE  TOWN- 


PLATE  21 


Cross-hatching  denotes  late  Blemyan  repairs. 
Broken  hatching  denotes  post-Blemyan  work. 


THE  CASTLE.    GROUND  PLAN. 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  22 


The  parts  of  the  walls  still  standing  above  floor  level 

are  shown  in  solid  black. 
The  restored  parts  are  hatched. 

See  }).  15.  Scale  1:200 


THH  CASTLE.     PLAN  OF  FIRST  FLOOR. 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWS 


PLATE  2;5 


Restored  section  North  by  South  alons  line  A 


A  in  sroiind  plan,  PI.  21. 


Restored  section  East  by  West  along  line  B 


B  in  ground  plan,  PI.  21. 


See  p.  15. 


Scale  1:  200 


THE  CASTLE.  CROSS-SECTIONS. 


KAKAXOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  24 


See  p.  26. 


HOI  SE  1. 


GHOL  \D  PLAN. 


Scale  1:200 


KARAXOG,  THE  TOWN  PLATE  25 


See  p.  S8. 


Scale  1:200 


HOUSE  2 


GROUND  PLAN. 


p.  .10. 

HOUSE  3.    GROT'M)  PLAN. 


Scale  I 


"■^X— _^  N  COliv. 


Black  denotes  buildings  of  the  later  period. 
Blue  denotes  buildings  of  the  earlier  period. 

Scale  1:200 


HOUSE  5.    GROUND  PLAN. 


I 


KARANOG,  THE  TOWN 


PLATE  28 


KAKAXOG, 


THE 


TOWN 


PLATE  29 


Black  denotes  buildings  of  the  later  period. 
Blue  denotes  buildings  of  the  earlier  period. 

Scale  1:200 

HOUSE  8.    GROUND  PLAN. 


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GO 

W 
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w 

O 

W 
X 
H 

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